Guardians of the Light
by Wesfan1234
Summary: The gang tries to recover from losing to the bad guys with a new adventure. sequel to the Guardians series
1. Starting Over, Again?

Title: Guardians of the Light

Rating: Probably T just to play it safe. I'll tell you if it strays off into R territory.

Summary: The gang tries to recover from losing to the bad guys with a new adventure.

Pairings: Wesley/Faith, Angel/Cordy, etc., etc.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I can't make any money off of this, because it all belongs to someone else. He just lets writers play with them for a while. I'll put them back when I'm done.

Notes: Sequel to "Guardian Angel", "Guardians of the Gate", and "Guardians of Forever". If you want know what's happening, it might be a good idea to read the other three first, or you might be a little lost. Timeline wise, this story takes place approximately one year after "Not Fade Away", Angel season five. So if you haven't seen S5, there are spoilers.

Guardians of the Light

Chapter One—Starting Over, Again?

This was just not working, Faith thought. Really, really not working. As she squeezed by yet another teenager to go to the bathroom, Faith wanted to yell uncle. It had taken them a few weeks to settle all the girls, but they had done it. Many of them had returned to their homes instead of sticking it out in England. Giles didn't have any other choice in the matter since he could not feed, clothe, and house that many people. Fortunately, their watchers traveled with them. Until they could figure out why all their powers had disappeared, the girls would need protection, someone to look out for them.

A few of the baby slayers did not have homes to go back to, so they stayed. Those numbers were around twenty. Giles had managed to house that many people. It was the money that was in scarce supply. Pooling resources from lots of places, he managed it, for now.

Roger Wyndam-Pryce had taken over. Most of the council was on his side too. A few of them had sided with Giles, but that didn't matter. All Roger was in charge of were some buildings, records, and some black ops guys.

Faith was vulnerable. She knew that. Wesley had taken to carrying weapons with him wherever they went, which wasn't too many places lately. They kept a low profile, which was driving her nuts.

Giles had four bedrooms in his cozy, little cottage. They had converted his library into another one, bringing it to five. Wes had insisted that the two of them share a room, if just so he could protect her. Snuggling with him in a room smaller than a closet was alright in her book because the damn house was drafty as hell. As she slid in beside him, she heard him moan a little in his sleep as she put placed her cold feet next to his.

His mighty magicks were still around too, swirling at the crappiest moments, like when some guy delivered a package. Wes thought they were under attack. Poor guy was slammed up against the porch faster than she could snap her fingers.

Was this situation permanent? Would they ever regain control of the Watchers' Council? Heck, she'd settle for her slayer powers back. All they had going for them were Willow and Wesley's power, with a bonus of portal wielding Dawn and her insights. Now that was kind of freaky. No vampire strength, no slayer strength, just wards and portals and magic. Even Giles hadn't regained any of his power, which made him so grumpy.

Giles had turned his barn into a dormitory of sorts for the rest of the girls left in his charge. Everyone shared responsibilities, including cleaning, cooking, tending to Giles' horses. Whatever needed to be done, there was a schedule.

Stretching her arms over her head, Faith glanced at the small clock on the table beside her bed. It wasn't quite six in the morning. The sun was just starting to crest over the hill. As she looked out the window, she saw the morning fog lift as the sun touched the green fields off in the distance. It certainly was beautiful here.

Looking down at the sleeping form beside her, it could be said of him too. Wes looked so peaceful when he was sleeping, unlike when he was awake. Tense was the only word she could use to describe him. Hell, she had to tackle him at least twice a day to bring him out of his brooding. Tickles and/or sex did put him in a much better mood.

They were squeezed into a twin bed in a room tinier than her cell in prison. That didn't matter though. What mattered was they were together. Nothing was going to tear them apart this time. No fucking thing, especially good old daddy Pryce.

He had made overtures to Wes, but Wes had refused to even answer the inquiries. Good for him. His daddy really did suck. The frown that Wesley had on his face while sleeping worried her. His nightmares worried her more. He'd wake sometimes, screaming and thrashing. Once he'd screamed so loud, Giles and Angel had come running, thinking they were under attack. Angel's pained expression had scared her even more though. Angel had become broodier than Wes.

That was why she was glad that the kids were around. Dawn and Connor had caused a lot of mischief and a little happiness around the house. Angel and Buffy had tried to keep the two away from each other, but it just wasn't working. But hey, Angel was getting quality time with his kid, so all of that was good.

Fred had taken to playing house mother to the younger slayer girls, giving her lots of time away from Wes. Faith was glad for that. Although it seemed that Wes didn't care, sometimes she caught him gazing at the slim girl, with that far-away look on his face. Faith would try to laugh it off, but that worried her too. Crap, she was tired of having to worry about stuff.

Wes twisted in the sheets. She hoped that another nightmare wasn't going to happen. They seemed to be more frequent lately. Faith traced the frown lines on his forehead, then replacing her finger with her mouth, gently placing kisses along the worst of them. He relaxed in his sleep, snuggling up against her tighter. Faith had taken to actually wearing clothes to bed after accidentally flashing Spike one early morning. Spike had gotten a show and didn't mind, but she did.

Wes's scratchy beard rubbed against her neck, but she didn't mind one bit. His knee between her legs warmed her considerably. The hand traveling up her back made her realize that Wes was now awake, fully awake. She gave him just a little more access to her neck. His lips replaced the stubble, making her groan just a little.

"You've turned into a morning person, my dear," Wesley whispered in her ear as his hand made it down to her backside.

She had turned into a morning person. In her former life, she usually slayed until the sun came up. Not anymore. It was kind of nice to wake up to this. She let Wes explore a little more before she joined in. Nice way to wake up in the morning. They would just have to be really quiet.

Wes stifled her squeal that was building in her with a kiss. As he moved over top of her, she wondered why she deserved a man like him. But just sex couldn't keep him happy for long. He wasn't exactly that kind of guy, although she knew he certainly did enjoy their time in bed together. When would he get bored of her?

"Stop thinking," Wes whispered in her ear as he slowly moved over her.

Then he worked his magical hands and all was forgotten, making her get caught up in the moment, forgetting that the thing that made her special had been taken away. The bed creaked a little, the room smelled of old books, and the house was about to fall down around their ears, but right at that moment, she didn't care one bit. She had her man, would keep her man, and would fight anyone who tried to take away her man, even if it meant that the person she took down was a friend. Everyone better watch out. Wes was hers.

* * *

Angel had always enjoyed mornings in Ireland as a boy. The sweet smell of the flowers in the morning dew teased his senses, making him remember what it was like so long ago. The way the sun hit the ground, warming it, almost making it glow as the sun rose over the horizon. Angel had missed watching the sun rise. Vampires had to be wary of the sun because it had a way of burning one to ash. Sleeping with the window slightly ajar, Angel took a deep breath as he got up from his bed, raring to go.

He bet that everyone else was still asleep, until he heard noises from the next room. Figures. Faith had taken to being a morning person, which he thought was a little funny. Turns out he was on his way to being one also. With an early start, he could get all that he needed to get done during the day, leaving the night to relax, read, study, avoid Cordy, not all in that order.

Angel almost yelled at the two next door to keep it down, but he just couldn't. Not like he couldn't fault them for being happy, if you could call Wes happy. Sure, he was happy when he was around Faith. Otherwise, his attitude sucked just as much as Angel's did.

Faith made Wes sane. Cordy made Angel crazy. Her mood swings would challenge even the most patient man. Not that she wasn't like this when he first met her. He knew though that she was having a difficult time adjusting. There just wasn't much for her to do. Being a god-like creature had kept her busy. Now she was just human. As was he.

Angel did enjoy going out in the middle of the day, without protection of any sort. He'd actually gained some color on his cheeks and even once sunburned his back. Cordy insisted on buying him the strongest sunscreen she could find. Spike ignored the warning and was burned all over. That Angel got a kick out of. Spike luckily had found something to keep him busy, which was to help out Fred.

Angel had become a farmer. Helping Giles out around his farm, he tended to the horses, mended fences, occasionally built stuff, just like he did back home in Ireland, when he wasn't drunk and chasing women that is.

As he opened the door to his room, Cordy appeared directly in front of him, carrying a change of clothes and shoes. Her hair was tousled from sleep, no makeup to speak of, and eyes still heavy-lidded. She'd obviously not had any coffee as yet. He wondered if it would be safe to even say hello.

"Hey," he whispered.

"Hey," she answered back.

"You're up."

"Long day ahead. Giles actually has a project for me."

Angel thought that maybe Giles was losing his mind trying to run this place, but he didn't voice that opinion in front of Cordy. Anything to get her up out of bed and busy was good in his book.

"That's good," Angel hesitated.

"Totally. Really getting tired of sitting on my ass all day, if you know what I mean. Not like I can do much else."

"Know what you mean."

They both shook their heads yes, like they did know what each other meant and then just stood there looking at each other. This is where they usually fell down on the job. Small talk was one thing. Intimate talk just didn't exist for them, yet.

"I probably should get in there before everyone else wakes up."

Angel moved over slightly for Cordy to pass. They brushed arms, sending little sparks up and down Angel's side. Before Cordy could get too far away from him, Angel touched her shoulder, making her turn.

"Maybe I could help you with your little project. If it's not too much trouble."

"Maybe. Giles needs someone to take over the finances. Not like I've handled cash in any form for a while, but I do know how to count and pinch pennies."

Angel grimaced when he heard that. He never wanted to deal with money. It was always Cordy's responsibility, which probably wasn't the smartest thing that he ever did. She sure did keep herself in nice shoes. But they all had money to pay rent and for food, so she must have been doing something right.

He hadn't let go of her arm until she looked down at the contact between the two. Angel jerked his hand away, almost like he'd been shocked. Cordy turned her head slightly, in a gesture of trying to hide her emotions from him.

Before she could turn to make her getaway, her hands came up to the sides of her head, holding it in pain. Her pain was his pain because he really felt like doing the same damn thing. Angel was able to catch her before she fell over, taking the two of them to the ground hard. It took a few moments for Cordy to come back to herself. Breathing hard, she slumped over against him for support.

Oh no, he thought. This can't be happening. She's not half demon anymore. Those visions were supposed to be gone. She died for those visions. He had almost died for those visions. She raised her head, not quite focusing on him. It was then that he realized what she had seen. He had seen it too.

Angel had collapsed on the ground right along with her, but hadn't realized it at the time. His concern for Cordy's well-being was first and foremost in his mind. The flashes were just confusing. How was Cordelia ever able to figure out the visions and what they meant? Practice. Lots and lots of practice. Doyle hadn't ever been that good at it.

"Did you just feel that?" she asked as he heard noises off in the distance.

"What just happened? Vision?"

"Double vision. That was just too freaky."

Cordy still held on to him, anchored by him. Wesley poked his head out the door, sans shirt with Faith not far behind, with a sheet wrapped around her.

"Is everything alright?" Wes asked. "There was a noise."

Faith's eyebrows rose as she saw the two of them intertwined on the floor. Angel scowled back at her as he helped Cordy to her feet, not letting go just in case she wasn't steady. Of course, he couldn't ignore the fact that his legs were still a little shaky.

"Guy in a pub. Fighting this monstrous demon. We need to help."

Faith disappeared back into her room as Wesley came out to help him with Cordy. He always did that, helped out after Cordy's visions. Angel could handle it. Couldn't he?

"Where? Did you have any indication of where this might take place?"

"Where's Giles? Maybe I can describe it."

Angel didn't hesitate. He knew exactly where the attack was going to take place. He'd been there with Spike not two days before. Spike had convinced him that it would be good to get away from all those girls for a pint.

Faith was a quick dresser, running back to join the group. She slapped a shirt in Wesley's hand, which he quickly put on. Angel didn't want to press, but Wes still had bruises that hadn't faded. Had Faith noticed them too? Another thing to worry about.

"I know exactly where the demon will strike."

Wes and Faith looked at him pointedly, wanting more info. "How?"

"Now the PTBs decided that they'd torture both of us," Cordy explained as they headed down the hall to the first floor.

* * *

Doyle wanted her back in the worst way. Selfish, yes. Stupid, yes. Going to happen? Probably not ever. If Cordelia ever died again, he doubted they'd put her back here with him. He wondered if the Powers would catch on to what he did. Since Angel didn't have any powers to speak of and Cordelia regained her visions, why not let her share?

He still hadn't figured out a way around the fact that Cordelia was only a human now, no half demon. Eventually those visions would kill her, just like they almost did the last time. Figuring that they would, he had arranged for her to be half demon, fooling Skip. Doyle didn't think it would fly this time though.

"Look at Mr. Goody Two Shoes. Getting your jollies this morning?"

Oh crap. Not what he needed at the moment. Lilah had come back not too long ago. Who decided that she deserved another chance? He'd never gotten a vote, not that anyone would care what he thought.

He was in charge of this little group for now. An addition of Lilah would not make a difference. Having her closer, instead of working against him, might give him an advantage. She knew how the enemy thought, knew what might be some of the possible scenarios that they might pull. Having a woman who was a little bit evil might just come in handy.

"Just the woman I wanted to speak with. I have a plan."

"The Cylons also had a plan and that didn't work out so well for them, now did it?"

Doyle laughed. "Watching too much television there darling."

Lilah smirked a little too. He knew she was pulling his chain, thinking he wouldn't know what on earth she was talking about. He saw what the damn watcher saw in her. Sex in heels, skirt slit up her thigh, shirt unbuttoned just to show a hint of what was underneath. She sure did play the role well. But he wouldn't fall for it.

"Plan?"

"Oh, now that you asked, I have a plan to solve all this nonsense."

Lilah sauntered over to where he stood beside his new desk, which happened to once belong to Cordelia. He had left everything where she had left it. Her scent still lingered. Oh how he missed her. In heels, Lilah was as tall as he was. Looking at her eye to eye, he wondered if he should bring her in on this job.

One finger traced down his cheek, slid over his chin, down his throat. He caught it before it could go any further.

"You don't have to prostitute yourself for the job, sweetheart. It's yours if you just would ask."

Lilah didn't take kindly to his statement. From what he knew of her history, he probably wasn't far off from some of the things she had done while alive. She'd do anything to make it to the top. Or to get out of a hell dimension for good. The crack against his face sent him into a half-spin. She really did pack a good wallop. He was lucky she hadn't used her fist.

"Don't ever…" she started, only to be stopped by his hand.

She had started to take another swing at him, only he caught the offending arm before it made contact.

"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. Just remember this, Lilah. I'm in charge here. You work hard, not get into any trouble, then we'll be square. Try anything evil, then it's back to that hell dimension you called home. Got it?"

"Clear, boss." Lilah jerked her arm out of his grasp.

"Now that we've cleared the air, let's get down to business."

Shit, Doyle felt awful. He had figuratively hit her when she was down, not that she didn't have it coming, if just a little. He knew though that she'd test the boundaries more than once with him in charge. He didn't know her as well as Cordelia had. Keeping her close would be the best idea.

"I have a job for you."

* * *

"Oh, double vision. That doesn't sound good," Dawn pointed out as they loaded up Giles's SUV.

Cordy didn't want to have visions at all, much less share them with Angel now. Who in hell thought that was a great idea? Doyle better not be involved, she thought. She'd reach through the dimensions and strangle him if he was. The funny thing was it didn't hurt as much. Sure, ouch with the headache still. Angel was still not too steady on his feet. He'd learn being Vision Boy that it wasn't so much fun. Probably already knew that, she thought. That vision she threw his way when he was at Wolfram and Hart was bad enough. She didn't want to be responsible for almost getting him killed with actually getting him killed for real this time.

So here they all were, all human (well, mostly all because she still didn't know what was wrong with Wes), going off to save some guy in a pub. She didn't like the fact that Wes was their only wild card, emphasis on wild. They never did know what would set him off. Giles just scratched his head and sighed. Willow kept to herself mostly, chanting a little, but not saying much to her at all. Buffy was nice, but not very talky. Dawn was way too talkative, so much so that Cordy had actually yelled at her to be quiet once or twice. Or three times. She'd lost count. Then there was Angel and Spike. Spike was enjoyable to be around mostly, but he spent a lot of time helping Fred, who spent a lot of time out of the house, avoiding Wes and Faith. And good old Faith, who much like her, didn't know what in hell to do with the rest of them. Faith was definitely not a hanger, as the case may be. She and Wes were joined at the hip.

That left Angel. Geez, if he touched her one more time and shocked her, she'd scream. It was like he was electrically charged or something. Sure, the vision thing was brand new. Blowing up a balloon one day, Cordy managed to place it on his head just to see if it stuck permanently. He had to pop the thing just to get rid of it. She could tell that it annoyed the crap out of him, but she had to get her fun from somewhere.

She wanted to spend time with him, talk to him like they used to talk. The words mostly would just not come. Then she'd yell and they'd fight and go off to neutral corners. Something had to give. She had nowhere else to go. No apartment, no clothes, no money, no job. Nothing. She was royally stuck. Those visions couldn't have come at a worse time.

So Faith, Wes, Angel, Spike, Giles, Buffy and herself all piled into Giles's old van, hoping against hope that they could stop one demon. Seven against one. She didn't like those odds one bit.


	2. Another One Bites the Dust

**Chapter Two—Another One Bites the Dust**

"Crap. You know, I didn't miss this part of it. Get this stuff out of my hair," Buffy screamed at no one in particular.

Spike had his own worries. Trying to scoop off the mess stuck to his leather jacket, he rolled his eyes as he watched Buffy grimace. The slayer had taken on enemies that could destroy the world at the snap of their fingers and she was worried about a little slime.

"What the hell is this shit anyway? Better not be corrosive or there's gonna be hell to pay," Faith added, wiping her hands on the ground.

"I told you to duck," Wes said as he shucked his jacket off.

The only one not affected by the goo was Cordelia. How did she manage to avoid all the mess? Possibly was it because she ducked behind Angel right when the creature exploded? Angel had taken a big hit directly on his chest, probably ruining his only good shirt. Why was it when Angel was a vampire, he could dress for success, while becoming human, he looked like a hobo?

"Better not stain my leather," he mumbled to himself.

They had managed to take down one messy demon. Score one for the home team. By the looks of things though, it took way too much energy and time to dispose of one lowly demon in comparison to the damage they could have done as vampires and slayers. Not that Spike wanted to be turned again. He was enjoying eating again in addition to not frying at sunrise.

Giles tried rubbing his glasses off with his shirt tail, only to make the goo spread all over them. Someone else would have to drive back to the farm.

"That went well," he exclaimed as he pulled off the glasses.

"Yeah, right. It took us twenty minutes to take down the Snot Monster in there. It took all of us, no wait, all of us except for Cordelia, to take the thing down," Faith growled at the only clean person.

Cordelia smiled a little, but mostly stayed beside Angel, who was frowning at his shirt still.

"That was just pathetic. We need to train. Get ourselves in fightin' order, folks. We can be on top again, with just a little effort."

Spike's pep talk wasn't helping matters one bit. Cordelia even phfft'ed his speech. What else could he do to inspire some teamwork in this group of former superheroes?

"We could set up a training room in the barn or even outside if the weather is nice. Can't leave the rest of those girls vulnerable, now can we?"

Buffy nodded yes, then returned to pulling more slime out of her hair. Faith stripped her shirt off, throwing it his way. It hit with deadly accuracy, coating his somewhat clean face with ick.

"Excuse me? I just want to thank you."

Spike pulled off Faith's t-shirt, throwing it back to the last place where she was standing, where Giles was now standing, hitting him squarely in the face.

"Glad to help," Cordelia answered for the rest of the group. "Any time."

"Listen, I have a cousin that's been having trouble with something strange. Could maybe one of you have a look at it?"

They didn't solve crimes or help the helpless now. They all saved the world, at least a few times between the lot of them. This small stuff was for the birds. As he watched Angel take an interest in the guy's other problem, Spike knew right then and there he was going on another field trip with the kids. Just terrific. Being retired had its benefits. No one ready to kill you at a moment's notice. Plenty to eat that wasn't a liquid. A sweet lady to hang out and talk with on a sunny afternoon. Oh crap, what did he know? He was bored silly sitting on his arse doing nothing.

Angel took down the information, gave it to Giles, who promised to give the bar owner a call that afternoon so they could make arrangements to see the problem of his cousin.

This was not what Spike had expected after turning back to being human. They'd be at a disadvantage with no super strength. But they had numbers and hundreds of years of experience behind them. What could go wrong?

Everything.

* * *

"Everything is wrong."

Xander didn't want to contradict Jenny just because once upon a time she was his teacher. Everything was not wrong. Well, the fact that he was now dead, that seemed wrong in his book. For the most part, being dead was not fun.

"Why is everything wrong?"

He'd probably asked this question twenty times of the former gypsy slash teacher now guardian angel. She liked to rant now and again, but only to him. Was it because they had history together or because he'd actually listen?

"You're here, right?"

Xander looked down at his clothes, poked himself a few times, knowing that he wasn't waking up from a dream any time soon. Yep, dead was dead.

"I think we've established that I'm here. Your point?"

Jenny sat down next to him on the comfy sofa he had deposited himself on as Jenny worked up to her rant. He wanted to be comfortable this time. The last time, she'd caught him walking towards the cottage, i.e., big man's office. No place to sit while she yelled about the injustice of it all.

"Why are you here and they're not? I mean, come on. They get to be human again and you're dead?"

Jenny had wanted to know from Doyle as soon as everything had changed why two vampires had been given the right to be human again while she and even he stayed dead. The fact that Cordelia went from dead to very much alive kind of irked her too, but she knew to tread lightly on that front with Doyle. The man was hurting enough as it was to lose Cordy to the living.

"Wrong place at the wrong time? Listen, Jenny. I don't like being here anymore than you do. The fact that those two bloodsuckers are human again pisses me off too. But there's not much we can do about it, now is there?"

Jenny turned to him, one eyebrow shooting up into the air. She was thinking. He didn't like it when she planned. It had already gotten them in trouble twice with Doyle. Doyle's face had turned beet red as he yelled at them for interfering in someone's life. Jenny had not played by the rules either time. Not like Doyle was famous for following rules either. Now that he was boss, rules were supposed to be followed.

"What if there is?"

Oh no, no, no. He loved his friends too much to put them through another death. Willow and Buffy both would not deal well with another death. Not that he even liked Angel or Spike, but they were there to help protect Buffy and Willow, if even just a little. Either one would lay their lives down for his two best friends. Going along with Jenny this time would get them in heaps of trouble and not be to anyone's advantage.

As he stood, Jenny crossed her legs and grinned, like she had already started planning and implementing her strategy.

"Do not, I repeat, do not follow through with what you had planned. I may not like either one of them, but it's not like Buffy is the slayer and Willow is the witch at this point. They need Angel and Spike. Stay away from them."

Jenny stood directly in front of him now, ready for battle. If it came to that, he'd do battle with her. In life, she'd been fierce and feisty, but she'd also betrayed Giles and not been very truthful with any of them, putting all of them in danger more than once. Giles may have been able to forgive her because of her circumstances, but Xander wasn't Giles.

"On whose orders? Yours? Remember, they're the reason why you're here."

"Really? I thought it was a bomb. Thank goodness I didn't feel a thing."

"Yes, because it would have hurt a lot. Blood, guts everywhere. Pain is so overrated."

Anya. He didn't even have to look over his shoulder to know that his former fiancée had entered the room. It was kind of like a breeze with Jenny when she entered or exited a room. With Anya, the room swirled in all colors of the spectrum, then exploded into a million tiny pieces. At least, only to him. Doyle called it a gift. Xander called it damned annoying.

Xander not only was a guardian angel, he could also read people, dead or alive. Not like Cordelia was when she was alive. Gah, with the pain and anguish of some kind of visions that the Powers thought she needed to help Angel. No, this was one bona fide pain in the ass thing he seemed to inherit from another angel who had earned her wings. Since retirement wouldn't come for quite some time for him, now the reading was his.

Jenny in his eyes was turning a dark brown, which was not very attractive on her. Anya stayed a bright pink, he thought just so she could match her dress. She was playing with him. Anya was the only one who could manipulate what he was seeing. Damnit.

"Coming from someone who caused men pain for thousands of years," Xander reminded her.

"Don't care. Jenny, remember what Francis told you the last time you tried something like this?"

Jenny's aura turned from dark brown to deep red in a millisecond. She was working up to having a good fight with Anya. The buttons were being pushed by a master. Why did she fall for Anya's button pushing?

"Anya, I was handling this," Xander tried to explain just as Jenny pushed him aside.

"Handling what?" Jenny exclaimed as she tried to crowd Anya. "Keep your handling to yourself, Xander."

He didn't know who pushed him out of the way, but landing on his backside wasn't pleasant at all. The very few times Willow and Buffy got into it, it wasn't this vicious. Oh wait, it was. Willow almost destroyed the world. If it hadn't been for Xander and his speeches, Willow probably would have gone through with it all. None of them would be having his little spat right now. This, he could handle.

It didn't take much to freeze both of them in their tracks. Another perk of the job. Doyle had sat him down immediately after Xander had appeared in this realm. Since he had never met the Irishman, he had no idea what was going on, or even if he was dead. He wasn't hurt, he didn't feel dead. Doyle had explained to him everything that had happened, about the explosion, about where he was and what his job was going to be.

Xander must have shaken his head a hundred times in disbelief as Doyle explained why he was chosen to help. Then he read a list of do's and don'ts, which were mostly don'ts. Then he showed Xander another list. Xander could slow down time, see people's auras, and purposely freeze any individual he wanted. Cool was on the tip of his tongue just before Doyle told him that if he used it wrong, Xander would go to hell. Damn Powers and their rules.

What he didn't find out about until later was the fact that he was pretty special. Most angels did not have powers such as his. Doyle had some, but he wasn't showing his cards. Cordy must have had some, but obviously not enough to stop from becoming human again. She certainly couldn't keep her friends from losing what little advantage they had over the bad guys, including all the slayers.

That's what they needed to work on: getting the slayers their powers back. Doyle had told him to back off on that one, but Xander was determined to not give the forces of evil one more advantage on the playing field. And here were these two fighting about nothing much. He was not going to take out two more of the good guys just because of their very shady, well killing, pasts.

"Get a grip, you two."

Xander picked up Anya, moved her back about five feet, then stood between the two of them again, this time a little more aware and determined to keep a lid on it all.

"I hate it when you do that," Jenny declared as she unclenched her fists.

"Unfair advantage," Anya added, standing down.

"Which I will use again and again until you two kiss and make up. Understand?"

"I am not kissing her," Anya slipped in.

"Oh god, you are so literal."

That's what he had loved about Anya, honest and literal in any situation.

"No touching Angel and Spike. Understand?" Xander demanded as he pointed at Jenny.

"Touching? Wait, we can touch?"

"Anya," both Xander and Jenny yelled.

"Right. I know we can't touch. Didn't Cordelia touch though? Of course, she got thrown out of here. I wonder if that would work."

Xander hung his head down, hoping that she'd run out of steam and shut up.

"Go to hell," Jenny told her, which made Anya give her an angry look. "Not you, that's what would happen. Geez."

"There is something I need from both of you."

"Xander, I know you've always wanted a threesome, but I don't think now is the time."

Xander turned to Anya, made a slicing motion with his hand across his neck.

"Anya, it's a job. I need information. The slayers are sitting ducks. It's gonna be chaos on Earth soon if we don't figure out what's going on and why they have no powers left."

"Doyle said to not touch that one," Jenny explained, crossing her arms.

"Well, ladies. We don't have to tell Doyle, now do we?"

Both agreed to help him out and to keep quiet while doing it. If it was the last thing he would do, he wouldn't let Buffy and Willow get hurt by what had transpired. Doyle wasn't talking, but there might be others that would talk.

* * *

"Nothing?"

"No, sir. No luck."

Roger Wyndam-Pryce wasn't making any progress on this project at all. He needed the slayer and he needed her now. His special ops people could only hold things together as much as they could. England was rife with new demons every day. The Hellmouth in the United States was crawling with the undead. Why wasn't he making any progress?

His overtures to his son went nowhere. It wasn't like he was expecting him to turn over a new leaf and join with him to fight evil. He was living with evil in teaming up with Faith and her kind. He deserved what he got.

Only Roger needed the boy's power. It might make his job a little easier if he had someone at his side that could protect the slayer if she was not ready. If Giles had not gone and ruined his chances of finding the new slayer, things would have turned out differently. The records showed nothing. Every girl that was a potential had been accounted for in the records. Someone had slipped through the cracks. Since there wasn't much time, he'd sent out teams to scower the world to find his new slayer.

Those who were still on the Council begged him to hurry with his quest. The ones that had decided to stick it out with him still had confidence in him, at least until evil threatened the world again. Their luck had held for now. Would it be enough time to find the new slayer and train her? Or had their luck finally run out, leaving them without that one last line of defense?

He hoped that once the slayer was located, he could train her, meld her into his own slayer, so that what had happened over the last decade could not happen ever again. Slayers were not meant to have ties, were never meant to be coddled, were never supposed to have friends and family. They were put on this earth to defend it against evil. It was about time Giles and his ilk learned that lesson.

* * *

Lesson upon lesson upon lesson. He knew them like the back of his hand. He had learned them from an early age. To meld a slayer, a watcher must be firm, must not buckle to pressure to let the slayer have a life, and foremost, a watcher must never, ever get close to his charge, other than to provide means of eating, sleeping and clothing her until such a time as she perishes.

Wesley had broken all those commandments. Good for him.

Since none of the slayers had any powers anymore, he couldn't let them train with each other until they were ready again. So straw dummies it was. Faith still had her moves down, if just a bit slower and less aggressive than she was before. The inactivity hadn't hurt the human part of her. She was in shape, but not enough to take on a strong demon on her own.

Training had come naturally to her, just as it had to Buffy. Some of the other slayers were having a tougher time adapting, since they had not been out in the field much, if at all before they'd all changed back. Buffy was fast, agile, probably a little better than Faith actually, but he still would not ever let her go up against a demon by herself either. Faith had been more about power as a slayer. She lost that ability, but Buffy was always going to be quick. He need not mention that to either one of them, although he had just found out that afternoon that Giles agreed with him. Their notes were not shared with anyone. Neither former slayer needed to know their musings.

At this point, Wesley didn't know what to do. They were not ready, would never be ready to tackle what they had taken on before. Possibly teaching them how to use weapons would help, but he didn't want them to rely on something mechanical. What if they lost the weapon or something went wrong with it? It wasn't like they had many weapons floating around the farm as it was.

Money was tight, every tight, although with Angel and Cordelia's ingenuity, they were starting to bring money in to pay for food. The girls were getting more experience fighting, but sending out ten people at a time to take down one or two demons at a time took its toll. Three girls had already landed in the hospital, thank goodness none of them seriously injured. The money was welcome, the injuries were not. Wesley did not want to get anyone killed just to pay the bills.

Cordelia budgeted, Angel and Spike brought in the clients and he and Giles trained the girls to do their best. It wasn't enough. His research time with Giles and Willow netted nothing on why the slayers were turned back into ordinary girls. The fact that the world could possibly be without a slayer was disheartening to say the least, very dangerous if something bad emerged from the ether.

From what Giles could find out, there was nothing really horrible on the horizon, but no one was placing any bets on that theory. The fact that his father had kept making inquiries helped fuel that urgency to find out what had happened and how they could fix it. They didn't have the resources of Wolfram and Hart, they didn't have the network of people to work on this problem. It was just them, some shady characters that Giles knew and some luck. He just wished he knew of another way to gather the information they needed.

The books. Most of the books that they needed were still at the Council. Giles had books, but they had gone through those several times with no luck. Time was not on their side. There had also been warnings out there that his father was searching for something. Wesley would love to know what his father wanted so badly to let it be known that there was a search.

Faith missed hitting the straw dummy again, showing fatigue. She'd been training for hours, improving her technique slowly. There was only so much a body could do though. He'd have to make her stop if he wanted her fresh and ready in the morning to help train the others.

"Faith, time to pack it in."

Faith not only ignored him, she punched the straw dummy even harder. Faith and stubborn were used together quite often. He didn't want that to happen tonight. His head ached from the researching and fighting. Sleep had become a thing of the past. He hoped that Faith hadn't noticed his weight loss or how much grey he had in his hair. This whole thing was making him old, much older than he had ever felt before.

As he walked over to make her stop her workout, Faith took a swing at his head, barely missing. Before he could counter, her other fist landed directly against his jaw. She still packed a powerful punch, even without the slayer power. His jaw would have been broken otherwise. If he fought back, if he tried to counter her punch with one of his own, he would have injured her. So instead, he defended himself as best he could without lashing out at her. It was just frustration on her part.

"Faith, stop this instant."

"Fix this. Do you hear me? Fix this."

The fight went out of her so quickly, he hadn't taken his arms down until he heard her crying. She sat directly in front of him, covering her face with her dirty hands. He had never seen her look so defeated, even after the Beast had beaten her to a bloody pulp.

Crouching down onto the floor, he attempted to uncover her face, but she resisted. Instead, he gathered her in his arms, holding her tight until she wanted to talk. Her talking consisted of saying hello to him in the morning and asking him to pass the salt. Their relationship had gone downhill except when it came to sex. Sex still mattered to her, or was a release she wasn't willing to give up, yet.

"Faith, I want to fix this. I'm trying," he whispered when her cries had died down.

"Try harder. I don't know how much more of this I can take."

Wesley didn't know how much more of this he could take. The powers he had from Vail were sucking the life out of him slowly, while Faith seemed to be taking the rest. Emotionally he was spent. Physically he was on the edge.

"I don't know how much more I can do," he finally announced, getting the reaction he thought he'd get. It had gotten her attention.

Her face was streaked with tears, dirt and a bit of mascara. She looked a bit frightful, but he knew what she was like underneath. That's why it made what was coming all the more difficult for him to do.

"You're not giving up on me, are you?"

"Not on you," he answered, knowing that he could possibly do that in the future.

"But since you've already given up on yourself, it's just a matter of time for me."

Faith pushed him down, getting up and dusting off her pants. This was the Faith he hadn't wanted to see tonight. He wanted her fighting for her future, even if his didn't look so promising.

"I will never give up on you."

"You already have. Look at you. You're wasting away to nothing. You don't say more than two words to me unless we're training."

Wesley carefully pulled himself off the dirty floor, not wanting to injure himself. Just moving sometimes pained him so. His bones felt like they'd break if he moved the wrong way. He'd taken to not going with the group on their excursions just for the fact that he was a liability now with his physical condition deteriorating.

"When I say you have to fix this, I mean you. I don't care about the slaying shit, I care about you. Whatever is wrong with you is eating you up inside."

The pleading look on her face made him realize that she really did care about his wellbeing. It couldn't be enough though.

"I've tried."

"No, you haven't," she yelled back. "Damn you. You are not trying. How many times have you been beaten down only to bounce right back up? This isn't you."

It was him. It was his life, such as it was.

Faith took his head in her small hands, making him look into her eyes. The fight, the fire that she had in them when she was a slayer was still there, if but a little dimmed.

"I can still kick your ass. Starting tomorrow, we're fattening you up. Workouts. Enough sleep. If not, I'll knock you out if I have to. You are not giving up. Do you hear?"

He tried to hear her. The buzzing that had started moments before was making it difficult to hear her words. He could see her mouth moving, then her eyes bunched up with worry. She pulled her hands away from his head, almost like she had been burned.

"Wesley, would you like to come out and play?" rang through his head.

Play? Who on earth would want to play? As he turned to see who was speaking, Faith ran past him, hitting a wall and bouncing back hard against the ground. Mark appeared out of the shadows, dressed in leather and spiked hair. The geek look was gone. The black eyes he now sported looked more sinister.

"Oh, you don't look so good, Wes. Neither does your whore of a slayer. Ooops, forgot that. Not a slayer any more. She's just a bitch with an attitude."

Wesley had thrown up a ward against Mark, but he knew it wouldn't hold for long. His power seemed to seep into the ground right where he stood. Was Mark causing all this to happen? That was the bet Wesley would place. His father didn't have the strength or magicks to do it. Mark did, even if it was borrowed power from Giles and Willow. If he could harness the power, possibly take it away from Mark, then taking him down wouldn't be a problem.

"Tell you what, Wesley. You go on thinking that you can take me on. While you do that, remember that every day I'm out there is every day you get weaker. It's all mine. Or it will be when you die. Until then, I hope you suffer."

Wesley motioned for Faith to stay where she was. She had gathered herself back together and was going to make another go at him. Nice that she still wanted to defend him even in her state. He couldn't risk her getting injured.

"Mark, I will figure this out, in time. And when I do, you're going to hell."

Mark laughed at his statement and disappeared just as quickly as he appeared. He must have a portal too, Wesley thought. Something Dawn could work on and put a stop to.

Collapsing to his knees, Wesley felt more drained than ever. Faith now cradled him in her arms, just like he had not moments before. What a pair they were. They went from being on top of the world to this. It couldn't get any worse.

* * *

Author notes: It always gets worse, Wes. Always.

Boy oh boy, I wrote Xander. Not a character I've written in great detail, ever. Hope I did OK. I sort of wanted to give him lots of fun stuff to do because in life he was just the carpenter. So have fun with this. Thanks to all who have reviewed. Y'all keep me on my toes. Please don't hesitate to point stuff out if you don't understand. I love questions or comments.


	3. Please Tell Me I'm Dying

**Chapter Three—Please Tell Me I'm Dying**

Faith did not want to hear those two words. Wes was not dying on her watch. Defending her against Mark had taken so much more out of him. She just had to get Giles and Willow and make them understand that no matter what, they needed to take that evil power out of him. If the two of them had to take it on themselves, then that would be OK too. She'd suggest that to them, as soon as she could get Wes back to their room and comfortable.

Struggling, she tried to lift Wes up from the barn floor. He was still heavy no matter what. She could take all this on and more. That's when it hit her. Why didn't he give her the power? Her body was fit, more than fit. Just so he could recover enough, then he could take it back.

Slowly the two of them staggered out of the barn into the dark night. The moon was low on the horizon, giving her just enough light to make it back to the cottage without killing them both.

"Wes, we're gonna fix this. I have a plan."

"Good. A plan," he mumbled back.

She'd have to hit the books, figure out how to transfer the power and then figure out how to give it back to him after he had healed. Shit, she thought. There is no freaking way she could figure all that out on her own. Maybe she'd convince Dawn to help her. Giles would definitely say no.

Before she could pull him up the stairs to the door, Angel and Cordelia came out, arguing at the top of their lungs at each other. They didn't stop until Faith nearly dropped Wes on the ground. The height difference really was a pain in the ass sometimes.

"What happened?" Angel said as he grabbed for his friend.

"Mark happened. We gotta do something. This is killing him."

Since Cordelia was much taller than she was, she took Wes's other side, helping Angel. As they made their way up the narrow staircase, Willow noticed the commotion and came running too. Spike had heard the noise and popped his head out his door. Dawn and Connor also heard everything and came to help. By the time everything was said and done, there were way too many people in their bedroom, attempting to take care of Wes. Faith just stood off to the side, wondering if she was sick, would these people come running too? Not the time to think about herself. Wes was all that mattered.

"We should take him to a hospital," Dawn suggested.

"He needs drugs," Spike added.

"He needs rest. He really can't go on like this," Willow chimed in.

"What he needs is all of you out of here right now," Wes finally said to all of them.

"Nope," Angel told him, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

Faith snorted a little, seeing the stubbornness in both of them. Wes had cracked open his eyes finally. That was a good sign. He was recovering from the battle.

"No way, mister. We are here to stay." Cordelia mirrored Angel's stance, only it didn't look as tough as Angel's did. Still, Faith wouldn't mess with her now. Cordelia had a height advantage and claws.

"My head is pounding," Wes added as he tried to sit up.

"Well, we'll get you some aspirin," Willow wanted him to know.

"Just tell me what you want me to do," Connor said, gesturing to everyone else that he was here and ready for action.

"Listen, guys," Faith started only to be interrupted by Giles walking in. Finally, some sanity in the room.

"I take it Mark made another appearance?"

"How'd you know?" Willow answered back.

"I could hear every word all of you said." Giles looked around at everyone. "Where's Buffy?"

"Dunno," Willow answered again. "She was just downstairs a few minutes ago."

Angel had a look of terror on his face that Faith had not seen too many times before. Pushing everyone out of the way, Angel ran around the house, calling out to Buffy loudly. No answer. He and Spike searched everywhere they could think of, but no Buffy.

It cleared the room for the moment though. Faith sat down next to Wes, grabbed his hand and wished the pain away for him. He sighed a little and snuggled next to her. Almost like old times.

"If we just take this power away, if just for a little while," she whispered to him.

Wes's eyes popped open again, luckily the shade of blue they were supposed to be. "And do what with it? I'm definitely not putting you in any danger."

He always saw right through her plans. Doesn't mean they weren't usually good plans though. It was a good plan, in theory.

"We could put it in a jar. Give it to someone else. Something. Anything. Just to give you time to heal and get back on your feet."

Faith lay down next to him, hoping that would give him a little energy.

"It's my cross to bear," he told her.

"Just give it to me for a little while. I'm sure Giles can make it safe."

"I can't just give it to anyone," Wes told her, closing his eyes and holding her closer.

"Then find someone you can give it to," she begged him.

"Buffy's gone," Connor announced as he ran into the room. "Must have been that Mark guy."

So all the while he was distracting Faith and Wes, someone snatched Buffy away. Without the slayer powers, she'd be a sitting duck if enough people took her on.

"It was," Wes noted as he slowly sat up. "He distracted us. I should have known."

"I am going to kill him," Faith heard Dawn shout in the distance.

"I think it's time to end this, shall we?"

Wes shakily stood on his own two feet. Faith didn't believe he had the strength to even walk down the steps to the first floor, much less end all this nonsense. Unless he had a plan.

"Something I've been contemplating for quite some time, my dear."

Faith did not like the tone of his voice. It was probably a plan she totally would not like and would possibly get him killed, again. That was not a good plan.

Wes grabbed a book off Giles's shelf as they all gathered in the cramped living room area. Slamming it down hard, Wes opened it up to the page he wanted. It was all in a foreign language that Faith would never know how to read or would ever want to learn.

Willow jumped back, almost like she'd been burned. Giles quickly slammed the book shut again and put his hand on the cover. Oh crap, Faith thought. Fight between the two watchers. Not what anyone needed tonight, that was for sure.

"If you go this route, there will not be the remotest of a chance in bringing you back. Do you understand, Wesley?"

Yeah, Faith kind of figured that his plan would have something to do with him dying in the process. She joined Giles's hand to keep the book closed. The cover felt really weird and not all that comfortable.

"Don't think so," Angel added to the conversation, in addition to adding his hand to the pile on the book.

"I don't think I'll touch that," Willow told Dawn.

"I can trace the portal," Dawn said, reminding everyone that she still had a power that no one else did.

"Shh," Cordelia told her. "That guy does not need to know that." Cordelia pointed to Wes and then put herself directly in front of him. Faith had dealt with Queen C when she was on a roll. It looked as if she was working up to a great big one.

"Listen, buster. You are so not gonna get yourself killed. I did not spend all that time and effort on you, just to have you die again. Got it?"

Cordelia's anger wasn't something to mess with. Just before she got around to pushing Wes back from the book, she grabbed her head in pain, screaming out in terror. Having not one but two people do that now was freaky to say the least. Angel dropped to his knees, groaning along with Cordelia's screams. So not only did they have to deal with suicidal Wes, they had to deal with another case to settle.

"Oh my god," Cordelia managed to get out. "We have to find her. Just, we have to find her."

Cordelia's face was damp with tears. Angel grabbed her hand, getting shocked by Cordy in the process.

"No touching," she insisted as Spike helped her off the ground.

"The slayer. We have to find the slayer." All heads turned to Angel. Could those be the magic words they were all looking for?

"I know where she is," he answered their inquiries.

"She's just a baby. Oh god, she's just a baby," Cordelia managed to get out as she held her hurting head.

"Oh dear," Giles said as he still held the book closed that Wes wanted.

"Let's go. Right now," Spike said, literally jumping up and down with excitement.

Giles and Wes both shook their heads no. This did not bode well at all, Faith thought. If the watchers were shaking their heads no, then that wasn't good.

"We can't."

"We mustn't."

"Shit," Faith added. "We can. We will."

"Just let me," Wes said as he reached for the book.

"No," Giles warned him and made the book disappear.

Willow made a wow sound, followed by an angry pout. "How'd you do that?"

"I think I have another way, Wesley. Just hear me out."

"This baby's the key, isn't she? We can't just let something happen to her," Dawn wondered out loud. Keys were always a sore subject with her.

"If we expose the girl, she definitely will be a target," Giles explained as he walked over to Wes.

"Oh no, you don't," Willow said as she made her way over to the two men.

"OK, one question," Spike piped up, blocking both of them from Wes.

Faith thought that now was the time to add herself into the mix. Obviously Giles had been planning something or Willow wouldn't be all bent out of shape. Since Willow still had the faint ability at magicks, could that be a problem? Faith did not want to deal with crazy magicks right then. She just wanted to deal with Wes and his problem.

"If we don't go save her, she'll die," Cordelia told the room's occupants.

"I'm going," Angel said as he grabbed Wes's arm. "And he's coming with me."

"What?" the whole room asked in unison.

"Not only is this kid the only slayer left, I think she's the key to solving this mystery."

"Oh yeah? You gleaned all that from one vision?" Cordelia asked her former boss.

"Well, duh," he answered back in Cordy-speak. "Did we just have the same vision?"

"What? With the blinding pain and confusing images?"

"Giles, don't you dare," Willow said as she pushed him back.

"Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?" Faith yelled to get some answers and a little peace and quiet.

"Well, see, Giles was gonna take Wes's powers, if just for a little while, only Willow doesn't want him to because he'll go all nuclear on us and Angel thinks that the slayer has some kind of healing powers, but Cordy totally didn't see it at all because of the blinding pain. And are you all forgetting about Buffy?" Dawn screeched. "Do I have to save her myself?"

"I'll go," Connor told her as he took her hand.

"Personal space," Angel said as he glared at his son. Connor didn't budge.

"Dawn, Mark is not going to kill Buffy. He hasn't gotten what he wants. The location of the slayer," Giles pointed out.

"I'm the boss as of right now," Faith said, standing up on a chair. "Giles and Willow. You so much as get near Wes, I'll kill you myself. As of now, he is off limits to you two. Angel and Cordy. Let's figure out how to get this child and protect her. Dawn and Connor. Portal. Trace it, but do not, I repeat, do not go after Mark. Spike. You're my henchman. Make them do it all. I'm taking Wes back upstairs until Cordy and Angel figure out where in hell this child is. Got it?"

They all looked at her like she'd grown two heads.

"Why can't I be the boss?" Spike wanted to know.

* * *

Xander sighed. Thank goodness Spike could never ever be the boss. He'd make a good henchman for Faith. Just as long as Faith didn't take Wesley's power, then she could be in charge.

"You mind telling me what you just did?" Xander heard Doyle say.

Turning, he could see that the Irishman was beet red and ready for a fight. Then so be it. Xander was tired of his friends not having the advantage. That little vision just might help them all. If they didn't get to the child before Mark or before Wesley's father, then it might be game over.

"Me? Little old me? Nothin'."

Xander picked up a book and settled down on the sofa for a good read. Good avoidance of the situation too. Possibly might make Doyle leave and forget about Xander's meddling. If Anya or Jenny had opened their big mouths though, he just might have to throw down.

Doyle sighed. "You gave them the slayer."

"Faith? She's right there. By the way, if I'd known that Mark was going to kidnap Buffy, I certainly would have interfered with that."

Doyle didn't have to know that Anya was watching over her at the moment.

Doyle slammed his book shut and threw it across the room. "I've been trying to keep her safe."

Xander had enough of Doyle's non-interference rules. If they couldn't guide their people, couldn't help out when needed, then why did they have these jobs in the first place?

"How? By letting her roam around without protection? When were you going to step in? When she died? Or was that the plan all along?"

Doyle grabbed Xander's arms and shook him, literally shook him.

"I would never let harm come to a child if I could prevent it."

Xander was having none of it. The Powers didn't care one bit about a person unless they were a means to an end. Xander had been made a guardian angel for a reason. He was going to use all the powers available to him. They could throw him in hell for all he cared.

"But do they actually want you to prevent it? What happens if that child dies? Do Buffy and Faith get their power back?"

Doyle jumped back a little. That was not what Xander was hoping. A child would have to die to save the world? He was not signing on with that one. Neither would Faith or Buffy if just to get their power back. There would have to be another way, if possible.

"That's not what I said," Doyle growled back at him.

"We have to help fix this."

Doyle held his head, like he really didn't want to deal with it all. The man had not been in charge until Cordelia went back to the land of the living.

"Do you realize how many lives can be messed up by this? We aren't playing here, Xander."

Like Xander was ever playing when it came to his friends. He'd been through so much with them, had been saved countless times by each of them. He just wasn't going to idly stand by and watch them die, one by one.

"Oooh, do I get to watch while you spank him?"

Lilah. Doyle had sent her off on an errand, possibly to get her out of his hair. Why'd she have to walk in on this argument? Terrific timing.

"Is it done?" Doyle asked her, shooting daggers her way.

"Yeah. Don't worry. I'm as good as my word."

"Yep. Doyle sends you off to do who knows what and you can't trust me? She sleeping with you?"

Doyle didn't even give him a warning before he swung a right hook and knocked him down. Xander saw stars as he sat on the ground. Lilah just stood over him, gloating. One of these days, he really wanted to bring her down a peg or two.

"Don't, Xander. Just don't."

"Now that's out of the way, what did you tell our Vision girl and boy this time? Must be juicy to get Doyle all worked up."

Xander wasn't talking and neither was Doyle. Would they be able to play it close to the vest or would everyone else find out about the slayer and who she was?

* * *

Willow watched as Giles paced back and forth in the living room area. Everyone had retreated to their neutral corners. Her hands tingled just a little, but not much. She had worked hard at retaining what little power she had. Giles touching that book hadn't helped matters one bit. She was just surprised that he even had that evil of a book in his cottage. Before when she was living there and recovering, she didn't even see those kinds of books.

"Hey, so you gonna tell me why that book was around or do I have to guess?"

Might as well lay it all on the table while everyone else was out of the room.

"I thought that it might come in handy."

Willow wasn't having any of it. His explanation was just lame.

"How so? Not getting our magicks back that way, now are we?"

Giles looked down at the place where the book had been. He had evidently discovered a way to get some of the magicks back or he couldn't have made the book disappear. That meant he was the only one who knew where it was.

"I was not going that route, Willow. Believe me when I say, definitely not."

But Giles would not look her in the eyes. So he must have done something to warrant the guilt. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed them vigorously with his shirt tail. Willow seized them and took them away, almost like taking away his security blanket.

"I really do not want to argue with you right now Willow. There is so much at stake."

Like she didn't know that.

"Look at me and tell me that you trust me."

Wow, now that came out of nowhere. She wasn't thinking that moments before. She just wanted to know what the book contained other than being really evil. She had almost destroyed the world before including taking Giles down in the mess. She guessed it was always in the back of her mind whether he had come to trust her again.

"I trust you, Willow."

OK, so now he was looking directly at her, wigging her out. Instead of taking his glasses back, he took her hand in his. She hadn't realized how cold her hands had gotten.

"Do you trust me?"

Of course she did. But so obviously wanted to know if he could trust her.

"I do," was all she could say. His hands really were warm. It felt nice.

"At one point, we may have to."

She knew exactly to what he was referring. It didn't sit well in her stomach at all. So the both of them were regaining something of their former selves. Inch by inch, they both possibly could handle Wes if he got out of hand. Yeah, it probably wasn't if but when. In the pit of her stomach, she was figuring it wasn't long until he blew.

"I'll be as ready as I can be."

"Good." He still hadn't let go.

She almost melted when he kissed her forehead and gathered her close. Was he treating her like a child or a woman? She was done with being a child in his eyes. She could take care of herself. Sometimes she needed to remind him that she was an adult.

Take Charge Girl pulled his head down and kissed him soundly on the lips. She thought he'd be repulsed by what she had done. Only he wasn't because he didn't stop until he heard voices coming their way. They both managed to smooth their clothes down before Dawn could see what they'd been doing.

"Oh, so, I think I have a line on the portal. And guys, get a room," Dawn snickered as she motioned for Connor to follow her outside.

"She, I, dammit," Willow stammered.

Giles just laughed and grabbed her hand back into his. Oh geez, now she'd gone and done it. That last little baby step toward him was the hardest she'd ever taken. Ruining the friendship did not need to happen. Plus, with the magicks flying around, they could do some serious damage to one another.

* * *

Where it had been threatening snow not hours before, now it was bright and sunny outside. The air smelled clean and had a bite to it. That didn't deter the children in front of him from running around, screaming and sliding, swinging and digging in the sand. Oh to be a child again. Angel never had this as a child and neither did Connor. Sure, Connor remembered having this kind of childhood since he could still draw on those memories that Vail had placed inside of him. Only Angel knew that Connor had grown up in a hell dimension.

He watched Wesley next to him, looking gaunt and beaten down. After this was all over, he'd suggest to Faith that she take him far, far away from everything. If this was ever over. Sometimes Angel wondered if it would ever be over for any of them. One crisis after another just sucked.

They hadn't wanted to take everyone with them because traveling in a large group would attract attention. But they needed numbers just in case Mark or Wesley's father was on the trail too. Angel just wished he knew why a potential slayer held so much power. Buffy or Faith never did at this age. Something had changed though.

Faith and Cordelia had insisted that they come too in addition to Giles and Spike. Conspicuous much? To find Buffy and put an end to all this nonsense, they'd have to take risks. Angel didn't know though if he was willing to take risks with a small child involved.

The child was easily picked out of the group. The hair of the girl was unique and definitely looked like the girl in his vision. What he was surprised about was the fact he could read the vision better than Cordy. She definitely had more practice in the matter. Too much, in fact.

"Oh no," he heard Cordy whisper beside him. "That can't be."

Cordy motioned him to look over at the bench near the red-headed girl who looked to match the description in the vision.

Wesley saw the adult sitting on the bench almost simultaneously. "Virginia?"

"Does he know that woman?" Giles asked as the group headed over to the red-headed girl.

"Yeah, he does," Cordy answered back, sighing in the process.

Both Faith and Spike were on alert as they approached. Angel thought it best that Wes take the lead and dropped back just a little. This was not what he was expecting. What if the vision was misleading? He hadn't seen Virginia in the vision at all, just the girl, running for her life. How he knew that she was the next slayer wasn't apparent either.

He didn't want to eavesdrop on the conversation, but he also wanted to make sure that this didn't go wrong and that this was the right girl.

Wesley's heart dropped like a stone when he saw Virginia. It had been so long since he'd seen the red-head, but he'd recognize her in a crowd, anywhere. She looked almost the same as she did more than six years ago when she told him it was over and she was moving on. Things hadn't gone well for them from the start, with the lying by him and her family circumstance. Indeed, he'd wonder how they'd stayed together as long as they had. His work and her insistence that he quit his work had doomed them in the end. She didn't want to see him hurt and he couldn't quit. It was as simple as that.

The small girl eyed him warily, but Virginia did not.

"Wesley? What an interesting surprise?" Virginia hesitated in the middle of greeting him when she saw he had company with him.

Cordy waved a little to her while Angel nodded.

"We need to talk. It's urgent."

"After six years, it can't be that urgent. How've you been?"

She smiled at him, but didn't look over at the child not ten feet from her. He could tell that she was nervous about something. Her hands clenched at her sides, but she still plastered on a smile. She was hiding something. He just hoped it wasn't dangerous.

"Fancy meetin' y'all here."

Wesley sighed in relief. Gunn. Wait? Wasn't he supposed to be in Los Angeles recovering? Turning, he could see that Gunn still carried around a cane to lean on, but he looked much, much better than he had the year before. Had it been a year since he'd seen Gunn? Or maybe it had been two?

Cordy smiled. Gunn's mouth stood open as he looked at Angel and Cordy.

"I see dead people. Have they developed sunscreen for vampires? I am so out of the loop," Gunn declared.

"Long story, Charles."

The red-headed girl looked up at Gunn and smiled, waved at him and proceeded to dump the contents of a bucket to make a sandcastle.

"So, why are you here?" Gunn finally asked.

"Why are you here?" Angel countered.

"Got hired to do a job. Not like there's money coming in right now. Virginia said she needed some help. So here I am."

That was a good enough explanation, Wesley thought. Virginia might not have had many options to protect the girl. Gunn would help her, possibly with no questions asked.

"Wesley, there's not much time," Giles reminded him.

He certainly did not want to spook Virginia, but they really did need to find out if the girl was the girl in the vision. She did look enough like Virginia to probably be her daughter.

"Virginia, you know that something is happening," he inquired.

"My family seems to think that Isabella is ready to be a part of the family. I kind of balked and ran. Please tell me they didn't send you?"

So that's why she was in England? Her family asserting their rights again? Did Angel misinterpret the vision? Cordy looked squarely at Angel and nodded.

"I'm right, OK," he explained to her gently.

"No, they did not. I believe that you may be in danger from someone else though."

That brought Gunn to attention, have him scanning the crowd for bad guys.

"Who? This bigger than I thought?" he asked.

Faith stepped forward. "Gunn, we gotta go, now. It's not safe."

He could see by the look in Virginia's eyes that she was panicking. Grabbing her bag, she explained to the girl playing in the sand that it was time to go. At first the girl didn't want to, but Virginia insisted.

"Maybe you should call Trevor?" Gunn suggested as they started walking to the van.

"No calls," Giles insisted.

"He'll wonder where we are. He's my husband. I have to let him know."

So she's married now. That would explain the child. She hadn't wasted much time marrying after dumping him. Her daughter stuck close to her side, looking him up and down. Isabella had briefly smiled Cordy's way, but had caught on that something serious was happening.

"After you're secure, you can call. We can't risk it," Angel said as he tried to speed them all up.

Wesley felt tingling up and down his spine, so he didn't care if Angel made them all run back to the van. He didn't think the van would help them get away from what they probably would face. Giles had his cell phone out before he could warn the other watcher that something was coming for them. The ground started to shake violently. Gunn had the forethought to pick the girl up just in case they had to run. Only with his still injured leg, he probably wouldn't get as far. Angel and Cordy flanked him on both sides now, with Faith and Spike in front of them. This fight could only be fought by Giles and himself. No one else had much going except for experience.

"Now, Dawn, now," he could hear Giles yelling.

His focus was on the creature directly in front of them. People ran every which way, but the creature didn't focus on that. It focused on the small group in front of it. Everyone else in the group readied for a fight. Wesley stood there, calm washing over him.

* * *

Author notes: Wow. This is not turning out how I had planned. I think the characters have hijacked the fic. I really wanted to work Gunn back into the gang, plus I felt that I've been mean to Xander. He's going to play a bigger part in this fic. I have been neglecting other characters, I know. We'll have to see if they all want to come out and play. Y'all might see where this is headed. I have an idea where it's going. Thanks for reading and reviewing. There have been several people who have been with it for a long time. I really do appreciate it all!


	4. The One With the Dragon In It

**Chapter Four—The One With the Dragon in It**

Giles grabbed his arm, forcing him to move back before the dragon-like creature took a bite out of him. He could hear Faith yelling at him from a distance, but all he could see were the dragon's eyes, firey and potentially deadly.

"No," he could hear Virginia cry off in the distance.

A small hand crept into his own. Looking down, he saw that the young child had taken a position directly beside him. She now was in the line of fire, literally.

"What a beautiful dragon," the little girl uttered, looking on with amazement.

Only the dragon wasn't attacking like it should. Wesley could feel all around him the anguish and anxiety at the fact that he and the little girl were now on their own. If the dragon did attack, Wesley would have to protect the girl.

By the actions of the dragon though, he didn't think he'd have to protect anyone. The little girl giggled as the dragon settled down in front of them. The eyes of the beast calmed somewhat, sparkling in the sunlight. Its breath was still rancid, but it looked as if they had dodged a bullet on this one.

"I think he might need our help," Isabella announced suddenly.

She moved forward until Wesley had the forethought to grab her hand once more.

"I don't think getting closer is a good idea," he explained to her.

She didn't seem frightened by the creature in the least. Everyone else was frightened and ready to fight. Isabella was ready to make new friends.

"He truly doesn't want to hurt us. They want to hurt his family. Can we help him?"

His family? This creature has a family? How on earth did Isabella know this?

Cordy moved to the front and crouched down in front of Isabella. "Can you talk to him, sweetie?"

Wesley's eyes widened when he figured that the girl did know how to communicate with the dragon. Why else had it stopped the attack?

"Why is there a dragon in the park?"

The voice was familiar, but Wesley didn't want to take his eyes off the dragon. They had gotten into a staring match that Wesley did not want to lose.

"Thank god you're here," he heard Virginia answer.

"Daddy," Isabella squealed. "See the dragon we found? It's neat."

"Your name isn't Trevor," Angel insisted.

"Gunn, when I give you a code name, you're not supposed to give it away," the mysterious man explained, all the while Wesley was still staring at the dragon.

He wished someone would figure out how to tell the dragon that they really were not a threat when finally Isabella skipped up to it. Wesley lunged, but missed her by inches. Everyone held their collective breaths while she spoke with the beast. She could have possibly been a snack for it, but all it did was grunt and groan, turning its head slightly as it eyeballed Wesley some more.

The girl turned and waved to Wesley to come nearer. Not wanting to ignore her pleas and making sure that the dragon would not be spooked by his approach, Wesley slowly walked up to Isabella's position directly in front of it.

"You're not going to hurt him, are you? He's afraid you will."

"No, I will not. Can you tell him that?"

There wasn't any special language that Isabella had to speak in, she just told him in English. But she could decipher his answer back. Amazing.

"He's a little scared of you is all. Says you look kinda funny to him."

The creature could sense that there was something off with him too? Smart dragon. He needed to know though who sent the dragon their way, to at least in the end intimidate them.

"We want to help you, if you can tell us who sent you on this errand."

The dragon grunted some more, Isabella shaking her head along with the tones.

"Can you help him? It's making him sad."

"Yes, we will," Wesley explained, getting a little exasperated at the exchange. "If you tell us who is threatening your family, then we can help stop it."

"He told me to tell you it's some guy with spikey hair."

"Shit," he heard Faith say right behind him. She wasn't more than three feet behind him. Everyone else had spread out, ready to do battle with a dragon that apparently didn't want to hurt a flea.

"Spikey hair? What kind of case do you guys have now?"

Then Wesley remembered the voice. "Your name isn't Trevor, David."

"It's my middle name. Isabella, I think you need to let the adults handle this now."

Wesley wanted to tell David Nabbitt that indeed Isabella would have to handle this since he didn't speak dragon, but the girl was working up to a temper tantrum at having been told to not help her new friend.

"No. I want to help him. Leave me alone."

Tears were forming in her eyes, making the dragon a little agitated.

"She'll be fine, David. Just give us a few more minutes."

Wesley held out his hand to Isabella to take it. The roar off in the distance wouldn't have been significant if it hadn't been so quiet in the park since everyone else had fled. On the other side of the park, at least a dozen vehicles were approaching quickly. Either the government found out and sent a task force, or someone else had tracked their movements. Wesley voted for the latter.

"We need to move now," Giles announced, dialing his phone again.

The dragon then turned to see the commotion coming directly for him. Wesley could possibly handle a slightly agitated creature, but not a full one pissed off one.

"I think it's pissed off," Spike told everyone, saying the obvious.

Hands tugged at Wesley's sleeve roughly. The dragon was between them and the new arrivals. Smoke bombs dropped all around them. It looked as though the new bad guys were attempting to smoke them out, but Giles had Dawn open the portal really close to their position. Wesley didn't think they'd make it through until the dragon laid down some fire power, literally. It wasn't until he was on the other side that he realized that indeed the dragon had been the last thing through before it closed off on the other side.

"You brought a dragon through the portal?" Fred exclaimed as Dawn closed it down quickly.

The dragon was still itching for a fight, but Isabella had it calmed in no time at all.

How could a five year old girl tame a dragon? Why did Cordy and Angel believe that this girl was the new slayer?

Wesley watched as David hugged Virginia, assuring her that nothing else would happen. He wished he had David's positive outlook.

"We found a dragon," Faith smirked up at him.

As absurd as Faith's statement was, that indeed was a dragon in the field by Giles's cottage. The creature should have taken their heads off or at least shot red hot flames their way. Instead it had helped save them from what looked to be black ops, possibly from his father.

Wesley watched as Fred crouched down and spoke to the little girl. Isabella grinned and pointed to the dragon, gesturing wildly like she was telling Fred the story over again.

"Gunn doesn't know," he heard Cordy whisper into his ear.

In the chaos of the moment, Wesley realized that with the impending doom of their situation, they had never explained to Gunn that Fred was alive. Fred turned their way, stroking the girl's hair softly. Wesley had really never seen Gunn cry until that point.

"Y'all are just full of surprises. Please tell me that's not Illyria?"

Fred smiled his way and ran into his arms. Spike frowned at the two friends hugging, then turned away. Wesley felt a little envy and regret too, just as Spike did now. Someone was happy with the circumstances. Wesley was not.

"We should talk," Virginia said as she made her way up to him.

"Yes, we should indeed," Wesley answered as he took Faith's hand in his.

"Alone."

Faith didn't like Virginia's insistence, but Wesley agreed to tell her everything after the one-on-one. Everyone else was either distracted by the dragon or distracted by hellos, so he and Virginia made their way to the cottage for some privacy.

"OK, who goes first," Virginia said as the door closed them off from the excitement.

"I'm sure that David could have afforded security for you and your daughter back in the States."

That much was obvious. David still was a very rich man. Virginia looked down at the floor. Something else was wrong. That much was clear.

"He could. And he did, for a while. Isabella has been having strange dreams. It scares me. She's always been different. She once told me that she could talk to a horse. Did you know that? I didn't believe her at first."

"Cordy and Angel were concerned about her."

Virginia eyed him warily. "They don't know Isabella."

"Vision, shared by the both of them now. Angel's human. It's a long story."

"I was wondering why he didn't look so pale in addition to walking in the sun."

"I don't even know where to start, Virginia," Wesley sighed. "You and David?"

Virginia smiled a little. "He's so sweet. He understands so much more than I ever thought someone would."

There's always a but in these kinds of conversations, Wesley thought. He'd gotten almost the same answer from Virginia right before she broke up with him. She told him he was sweet and understanding, but that she didn't love him enough. She couldn't handle what he did for a living. She certainly could live with what David was doing, earning millions.

* * *

Faith wanted to go in there and knock some heads together. Standing outside was totally not her style. Her asshole of a boyfriend decided that he didn't need her help. No backup from her? She didn't know this Virginia chick. Angel and Cordy seemed to know her and Trevor or David or whatever the geek's name was. Gunn was too busy with Fred to notice anyone else.

The dragon had settled itself on the ground while Willow and Giles kept an eye on it. Faith was glad that she didn't have to fight a dragon because the thing had the advantage of instant fire in addition to being really big.

Twisting her hands back and forth, Faith bounced up and down on her toes, hoping that the curly redhead and Wes got their business done fast.

"Little surreal, isn't it?"

Crap, the geek whose name she still didn't know had walked up to her and wanted to talk. Talking was never her strong suit. Hitting, definitely.

"Story of my life," she mumbled back, hoping he'd get the hint and leave her the hell alone.

"How do you know Wesley? From what I remember he was the biggest geek in the world, well, next to me that is."

Faith glared the man's way, but he wasn't getting the hint.

"I know that he and Virginia were once an item."

So that's what the little guy was worried about. Wes and Virginia were an item? Shit, what else was she missing about his past? How many women were going to come out of the woodwork? Fred, Lilah, this Virginia, hell, maybe even Cordelia. Faith filed that away in her brain to ask later. The man sure got around. People called her a slut. Not that Wes was a male version of a slut. He had relationships. With every freaking woman he met.

Faith's fist had a mind of its own. David ducked, but it wasn't meant for him. Her aggression always got the better of her, even in good times. Jealousy never came about since she was always one and done. Instead of her feeble fist bouncing off the wood shingles, it penetrated the wood, splintering it in all directions. Shit, it should have hurt like hell, but it didn't. Blood dripped down her sleeve, onto the porch.

The collective gasps behind her were muted, almost like background noise. In her ears, she could hear her blood pumping, her heart beating, her nervous system gearing up for one world of hurt from the fist. Nothing happened though. She wanted to cry out in pain.

Faith's other fist reared back, only to be caught just before it hit.

* * *

"Explanations? That would be lovely."

Virginia had taken up a defensive stance. Wesley would either have to yell to get her to open up or possibly threaten her.

"You see, you weren't there. David was. I just didn't want…"

"Want what? To bother me. Is Isabella…"

"No. No, wait. I'm not entirely sure."

Wesley's eyes widened at that. Virginia had seemed quite faithful while they were together. Now she was telling him something he could not believe.

"It all happened so fast. One minute we were together, the next minute not. There were a few drunken nights."

So she really did not know exactly who Isabella's father was. Wesley could do the math, but now there was significant doubt cast that he was truly that girl's father. He had hoped that it was true, if just a little.

"David pulled me out of it a few months later. I don't know what I'd do without him."

"Does he know?"

"Of course he knows Isabella isn't his biological child."

Cordy and Angel's vision must have been wrong. Or their interpretation was wrong. Isabella had something special about her, but not what they thought. Their way of finding Buffy and saving her just changed dramatically.

The pounding noise on the front of the cottage brought Wesley's attention back to the here and now. Virginia's head turned to the noise also. He hoped that a fight hadn't broken out between any of his so-called friends or possibly Faith. He hadn't even considered her feelings and thoughts in this matter. All he had wanted to do was confront Virginia and get the truth. Even she didn't know that.

The crack in the wall clued him in that whatever had happened outside wasn't natural. Swinging the door open, he noticed several people running for the porch. Faith stood not ten feet from him, blood dripping down her hand and arm. Her motion with the other arm caught his eye. Whatever had happened, she was aiming to repeat it again. Wesley caught the other fist on its trajectory, before damage could be done to it.

By catching it, he ended up slammed into the front of the cottage. Dazed by the action, he slumped against the wood and stone. Faith stood over him, breathing heavily, eyes glazed over. Her head reared back, almost like she'd been shocked or possibly injured. Her knees gave way, crumbling her body to the ground before he could recover and catch her.

* * *

A little girl. Fred was amazed that the little girl in front of her had so much power. Couldn't the rest of them see it? The dragon was subdued. The little girl had seen to that.

"He's still sad," the little girl said as she put her hand in Fred's.

Fred crouched down to her level, wanting to understand what had just happened. Everyone had come through the portal that Dawn had made, like someone was on their tails. The dragon was the biggest surprise, or so she thought. Didn't everyone else see the aura surrounding the girl?

"Can I ask you something? How do you know?"

The girl turned to her, eyes glowing dark blue. "Because he's my friend."

Not the answer she was looking for.

"Please don't tell me you're Illyria?"

Fred had totally not expected to see Gunn in all the mess of people roaming around right then. It had taken a few weeks just to get used to the fact that she wasn't dead anymore. No one had pushed her to come out of her shell for a few weeks, until Spike told her one day that if she didn't come out of her hidey-hole, he was going to throw her into the pond, head first.

Fred looked up at her former boyfriend. She was glad that there was no weird aura surrounding him like it did the girl. He was just Gunn, with the addition of a cane, a few more visible scars, and not much hair. He didn't look much different, other than more lines on his face. They briefly hugged, then backed up a few paces so both could assess what in hell was going on. Fred went back to her position with the little girl, almost like she was using her as a shield against her feelings surfacing.

"Thank goodness no. It's me."

She thought that maybe he'd throw his arms around her, squeeze the stuffings out of her or something to welcome her back to the land of the living. Nope, he just stared at her like he saw a ghost. Guilt must be eating a big hole in his stomach right about then, she thought. Since he was partially responsible for Illyria in the first place.

"How?"

Even Cordy couldn't answer that one. They tried to hash it out one afternoon while no one could hear. Better safe than sorry that the Powers knew they weren't telling secrets. The only thing Cordy could come up with was Fred was in the line of fire when Cordy came back. Really thin theory they both had agreed.

"We don't know. It just happened."

Fred slowly stood up, not taking her hand out of the girl's smaller one. Gunn caught a curl in his fingers, twirling it like he did so long ago, when they were happy together. Had that been so long ago? Her heart ached when she realized it had been. How she ached for Lindsey to be there for her, her knight in shining armor? How she longed for Angel to protect her from the bad guys once again? And for Wesley to step up and figure out with that big old brain of his what in hell was happening to everyone? Fred realized right then that no one was going to save her, only herself. Just like she had saved herself on Pylea.

Her hand grew warm, way too warm, so she dropped the girl's hand. That aura she had sensed had turned from a warm blue to a dangerous red in an instant.

* * *

"Whoa, whoa. This is not right," Doyle sighed as he watched the whole scene play out.

He had no control anymore on what happened. The visions weren't working out like he wanted, Cordy wasn't playing well with others and Angel did what he did best, sulk. Xander had taken to working behind his back with his two little henchwomen, Lindsey was nowhere to be found and Lilah was working on his last nerve. Cordy could fix all this and more before lunch. Doyle could not work his way out of a paper sack.

Something, or possibly someone was working hard against him. All the players, minus Lindsey, could never exert this much influence over the people below. He didn't know what in hell the other man was up to at the moment. His inquiries had been taken under advisement, but no one had gotten back to him. They hadn't sent Lindsey back to hell, that he knew. He couldn't trust anyone, that he knew too.

Everyone was working against him. Was this how Cordy felt every single damn day she was here? Was that why she'd gotten so worn down? No, she had him to rely on, to help her through the hard times. He had no one. Oh, how he missed her so. At least she was with Angel, the bastard. If he couldn't have her, well, Angel could.

Doyle punched the air in disgust. Angel did have her. He didn't. Nor would he ever. He and Cordy had been friends, best friends while they were together. Nothing else. No matter what had happened between the two of them. It was always about Angel in the end.

Picking up the old style phone on his desk, Doyle dialed zero. He had never seen Cordy dial for help. She handled just about everything, except becoming alive again. The voice on the other end asked a few questions, answered a few of his, then hung up. It was done. The higher ups had the info, would look into it and get back to him. It would be a big black mark in his file that he couldn't handle one simple thing.

* * *

Progress. She liked the sound of that. Being chained to the floor certainly hadn't been on her agenda for the day. The chain gave, if just for a moment, until Mark regained control. She'd have broken out of it if whatever had happened had just lasted a few more moments. Then what? Her strength still hadn't come back.

Buffy hated being in a position of weakness. Being held prisoner by your former boyfriend, who has now turned into evil bad guy of the week was so last week. Been there, done that, had the scars to prove it, thank you ever so much Angel. Where in hell was Angel? Giles? Willow? Were they going to leave her here to rot?

She'd have to take matters in her own hands and escape. The link slid off, so she could get free, sort of. Carrying around a heavy chain while trying to escape was not in the cards. She had to do something though. He'd notice eventually about her escape attempt. She had protested, pleaded, snarked, everything she could think of to make him let her go, if just for an instant.

Now he howled, at everything and everyone. Whatever had happened had sapped him of energy. His minions ran all over the place, trying to please him. Buffy just watched from a distance, hoping that he had forgotten about her.

"This is your fault," he exploded as he approached her.

Finally. Except this was not what she wanted, just yet. She needed her strength back at full. Those chains had to come off for her to fight.

"Hey. How did I do anything? Prisoner here."

Before he could retort or possibly use violence, another one of his minions whispered in his ear. She'd take the distraction where she could get it. He walked away without a goodbye, almost like she didn't exist. Good for her. Her arm was still smarting from him kicking the crap out of it.

As one of the minions unchained her to take her back to her cell, Buffy held the two pieces together as best she could. Rounding the corner, the minion turned to unlock the door to her cell. Instead of pushing her inside, he got a face full of chain. Didn't take much to take the jerk down. He fell with a thump. Searching him, she found what she was wanted. The keys to her freedom.

Unlocking the chain, she dragged the minion into the room, chained him up and covered him with a blanket. Not the best job in the world, but advantage goes to Buffy, she thought. Chaos in the evil guy's lair meant another distraction for her to escape. The jacket the guy had on was too large for her, but from a distance, it could help her in getting out of there.

She still wasn't at super strength, but she'd take what she'd been handed. Anything was better than sticking around with sicko Mark and his band of scary minions. Where did he find these guys? Minions R Us? Peeking around a corner, Buffy tiptoed slowly until getting past a group that had gathered. This was way too easy, she thought. Mark had played his cards well until now. Was he letting her escape or just getting sloppy?

An advantage was an advantage.

* * *

Author notes: Wow, did that chapter not want to happen. Sorry I've been AWOL, but the words are not flowing right now. This took me a while to type. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels right now. So I need to regroup and make sure I get to the finish line and where I need to be with these characters. I threw in Doyle because he so was not getting the love. I just want to hug him. He sure does need someone on his side. Hope you enjoyed and thanks for the comments. Keep me on my toes, folks. I do need it!


	5. Breathe

**Chapter Five-Breathe**

Cordelia watched as Wes crumbled next to Faith. Why couldn't anything go right? Why did they always have to be on their toes? The hand that had been entwined with hers warmed up to the point where she wrenched hers away. Gasping in surprise, she looked to see that Angel was sweating, face turning beet red. The clouds in the sky darkened somewhat, scaring her even more.

"Cordy, don't go," Angel commanded.

Where the hell would she go? She wasn't going to abandon her friends when all hell was breaking loose. Only when she looked down at her hands, she could see why Angel was so freaked out. Her hands faded in and out of this reality. This wasn't good at all.

"Inside, now," she insisted as she attempted to push Angel towards the door.

Off in the distance, she noticed that Spike didn't look so great either. The bit of smoke that rose off his coat worried her even more. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Solid again, Cordy grabbed Angel's arm and jerked him forward. It was crowded on Giles's porch, but she didn't care. She had to get him inside and out of the daylight. Spike made it to the porch on his own. Thrusting them both inside, she turned to attempt to help Wes. Faith crouched off to the side, obviously in shock.

"Where am I?" she mumbled to no one.

* * *

Wesley's head pounded from the body slam. That wasn't what he was worried about though. His head would heal. Faith worried him so much more. Should he be glad or mad that her slayer power chose to reappear at that instant? Giles, Willow and David all hovered around him, looking him over, making sure there was no permanent damage. He wanted to yell at them to get the bloody hell out of his way so he could examine Faith, only Fred beat him to helping Faith. Only Fred was shaking like a leaf too. Gunn seemed to be the only one unaffected by what had happened, so he gently guided Fred to his side, crouching down to examine the stunned woman.

"Let me up," he exclaimed to the trio surrounding him.

Giles and David helped him up. The dizziness subsided a little when he was fully upright, but that didn't deter him from checking on Faith.

"You need to let me look at your hand, Faith. It's messed up," Gunn declared, trying to open Faith's hand to examine it.

Faith's eyes were wide and round, like she was confused, but not in too much pain. Blood had crusted over the injuries to her hands. Her eyes darted from face to face, possibly looking for an explanation of what just happened.

"Just leave me alone. OK?" she implored Gunn as she pushed against the wall at her back.

The sheer panic in her voice made Wesley wonder if her injuries were more severe than her appearance let on.

"Get out of my way," she cried as she lurched from her seated position, knocking Fred down as she hurled herself off the porch and into the dirt.

The dragon standing nearby made her stop suddenly. Luckily it hadn't been affected by whatever had overcome Faith. He certainly didn't need an attacking dragon with a little girl in the middle of all of it. Isabella stood not two feet in front of the dragon.

"What the hell is that?" Faith screeched as she slid backwards in the dirt.

Slowly, Wes made his way over to his slayer, hoping that her lapse in memory was just temporary. She bloody well knew where they had acquired the dragon, which meant that an injury to her head could possibly have thrown her off.

Isabella turned her head sideways as she looked at Faith. Reaching her hands out, she approached Faith. Only her hands now glowed red. What on earth had he introduced to the others? What was Isabella?

Faith didn't stick around to find out. Finding her feet, she fled around the house faster than he could manage to follow. The odds were if he didn't catch up with Faith, she would be gone. With Gunn limping from a permanent injury, his head aching from a possible concussion, the only people who could catch her were Giles and Willow. Taking off as fast as he could, he noticed that Fred had the same thoughts that he did and was in hot pursuit. Fred's legs were not a match for Faith's suddenly reappearing slayer powers.

Faith slid over the roof of Giles's rusty old car. Before he and Fred could reach it, Faith had gunned the motor and was half way up the driveway, speeding off down the lane at a breakneck pace. Collapsing where he was on the dirt road, Wesley pounded the ground in frustration. Not only had Faith fled, it seemed that the rest of his team was MIA. The smoke coming from Spike's coat indicated that things had possibly changed back to the way it was. Wesley never wished for Spike and Angel to change back into vampires.

Connor came trotting back from the barn, Dawn hot on his heels.

"Did Faith just take Giles's car?" Dawn inquired while Connor helped Wesley up from the ground.

"Apparently," he relayed back.

Looking up at the boy, he noticed several cuts and bruises present on his face. What else were they fighting?

"Just so you know, those baby slayers? Power on full. Also, they have no idea who the hell they are."

Dawn just answered several questions in one breath. Faith had her slayer abilities back, but no idea why she had them, in addition to not knowing who she was. Two, Connor's injuries were probably the result of several of those girls coming after him when it happened. And three, he had no idea how to find Faith or to help those girls.

"Connor, don't tell me…" Wesley started to ask before he fell to one knee again. Getting up again wasn't the grandest of plans.

"They hit first. I think the watchers have them under control. They just freaked out."

As had Faith. The ground waved in front of his eyes, making him dizzier by the moment.

"Uh, Wes. You don't look so good," Dawn reminded him, being well aware that he knew exactly why his head hurt so much.

Placing his fingers behind his head, it came back bloody. Not what he needed to encounter right then and there. He'd been injured worse though and had survived. Only the ground moved up to hit him square on the face. With a mouth full of dust and dirt, Wesley rolled to one side, wishing the pain radiating from his head away so he could get started on finding Faith. As his vision faded, he noticed two little feet approach in front of him. Oh, how he didn't want to deal with Isabella. That girl was possessed with something.

As he lost consciousness, Wes realized that his pain eased somewhat, but at that moment he could have cared less. He couldn't fight the fact that his skull probably had another crack caused by Faith.

* * *

"Shit," Faith screamed as she hit the steering wheel with the heel of her hand. The dent she put in it wasn't helping matters one bit.

All that she knew, she remembered was that maybe her name was Faith. The others that had been chasing her kind of confirmed that bit of knowledge. She knew how to drive a car, but not knowing the area put her at a disadvantage. The cuts and bruises on her hands healed before she'd gotten two miles away from that house.

Slowing down for a person walking on the side of the narrow road, Faith contemplated just pulling over and asking for directions. Maybe she hadn't seen all the freaky things back at that house. She'd lost her memory, so probably she'd lost her mind too. Cuts didn't heal that fast. Bruises didn't disappear on their own within several minutes of appearing. Shit like this just didn't happen. Oh hell, who was she kidding? Maybe shit like this did happen in her world.

Pulling over on the outskirts of a small town, Faith dug into her pocket and pulled out a few bills. She recognized them as pounds. So she knew she was in England. Rummaging around in the old car, she found a few more bills in the glove compartment. Would this be enough to get her far away from this place? Spotting a bus, she hoped that it would at least get her to the next town. Then she'd worry about putting more distance between herself and the crazy people.

* * *

"Ouch. Ouch. Make it stop spinning."

"Serves you right," Anya announced as she handed Xander a drink.

Gulping it down, he spit it out when he realized that she had handed him alcohol, really strong alcohol. Coughing, he handed the glass back to her, shaking his head in disbelief.

"You shouldn't have done that," Jenny concluded as she crossed her arms in front of her.

"Better than watching them possibly die," he managed to gasp out between coughing up a lung.

"The Irishman is not going to be happy."

Screw Doyle, Xander thought. He'd had enough of Doyle and his non-interference. It had taken a lot of time and effort to figure out how to get the slayers their power back. Only it didn't work out perfectly. Hey, at least Buffy knew who she was. Only her power wasn't on high like Faith and the other girls. Mark had been so close to harnessing the slayer power. Releasing it to the ether had been a piece of cake. A little bit of Anya knowhow and a little more of Jenny magic stealing, and they had a go. Only it didn't work out so well.

Anya seated herself beside him, snuggling up like she had so many times before. Jenny placed herself on the other side of him, definitely without the snuggling.

"So what do we do now?" Jenny asked. "Faith is AWOL, the other slayers are freaking out, and I thought I saw smoke coming from Spike's jacket."

What they hadn't seen was the fact that Cordy almost had rejoined them. That little bit he was keeping to himself. That's what worried him the most. Fred hadn't faded at all. Cordy fading to nothingness wasn't his doing. The smoking could have been a byproduct of all that power zinging around. Nope, he thought. He doubted that Doyle had anything to do with Cordy's problem or the former vampires' predicament. Or the fact that there was one little girl who could possibly blow up the world right in the middle of it all.

* * *

Cordy was tired. Her hands were now solid and functioning. Angel and Spike didn't both go up in a puff of smoke and dust. She'd felt for Angel's heartbeat as soon as she'd shoved him inside and slammed the door. Giles and Willow were now running around like chickens with their heads cut off, helping the baby slayers, trying to track down their rogue slayer and treating the injured.

Isabella sat not five feet away from her, resting on the sofa. Oh how she'd love to take a nap right then. The girl had conked out not more than five minutes after her mother had deposited her there. She had mumbled something about making Wesley better, than she was out like a light.

The only thing that would make Wes feel better was having Faith safe. Cordy never thought she'd string a phrase like that together. Faith and Wes an item? No way. Issues much? But she'd never seen two people attached more at the hip than those two. More than Buffy and Angel were in Sunnydale, more than she and Angel were. Now that made her sad.

Slowly working her way over to the kitchen, she noticed that Angel stood next to the refrigerator, like he wanted to get something out of it, but couldn't remember what. The expression on his face didn't match someone who was just hungry. It matched someone who was scared to death. She'd been all worried about herself for a few moments and had lost track of the fact that Angel had almost turned back into the thing he so did not want to be. His skin had even been cold to the touch after she had calmed him down in the cottage afterward.

"Angel?" she whispered.

Angel turned his head quickly, changing that expression of fear to guilt. Way to go, Cordy. Ruin his moment of contemplation because she was worried about him.

"No smoke?" Joking during stress had always been her specialty. It brought levity to the situation, making the best of the brooder's smile. Only she didn't get a smile this time.

"No. Just trying to figure out what to do next. Any word?"

Cordy moved closer to him, a mere foot in distance finally. They'd been dancing around each other for weeks. One moment he'd hold her hand tightly, the next moment it seemed like he couldn't stand to be in the same room as she was. And the visions? Shocking each other for at least a day afterward didn't help matters one bit.

"Unfortunately, no. Wes is resting. Boy when he wakes up." Cordy cringed with that thought.

Angel ducked his head, looking down at his shoes. He always did that when he wanted to avoid looking directly at her. Feelings and Angel weren't always a happy mix, particularly when she wanted to talk.

"Giles is working on it."

Angel twisted his hands together, back and forth until it drove her crazy. She grabbed at his hands, if just to make sure they were warm and not a vampire's hands. Trying to pull them away, Cordy made damn well sure that he couldn't retreat. His eyes darted everywhere but her face.

"I know that this is all confusing, but we'll figure it out. What's a little smoke?"

"And dust. Yeah, what's a little dust too while we're at it. And hey, now that we're talking," Angel said as he made little quotes in the air, "wanna tell me why you almost faded to nothingness?"

She thought he'd missed that. He held her hands tight in his now, finally looking directly into her eyes, like he could see into her soul. Smiling wouldn't get her out of telling him that she was scared shitless, but she'd go ahead and try anyway. Only he frowned even more at her.

"I don't want to lose you."

"I don't want to be lost," she answered in kind. "I am so not gonna sweep up the mess if you go poof on me."

Angel pulled her tight against him. "No poofing."

Placing her hand against his chest, she relished the fact now that his heart beat furiously, where before, when he was a vampire, all she got was a hard chest to rest her weary head. No matter what, she preferred Angel to be with her, no matter if he were vampire or human or something in between.

They'd only shared a handful of kisses since she had suddenly come to the land of the living. It was like he was afraid she might disappear if he touched her. Passionate couldn't begin to describe what his tongue was doing to her though. A little moan escaped as Angel worked his hand through her hair while the other hand descended. This was so not what was needed, but she wasn't thinking about what was needed, but what was wanted.

"Get a room. Oh wait, there are none," Spike said as he entered the kitchen, slamming cupboards, pulling out a bag of chips in triumph.

Angel growled into her lips. The grinding action they had going stopped completely when Spike decided to interrupt their interlude.

"We gotta motor. Now," he announced as he pulled Angel away from her.

"Faith?" she asked, hoping that the slayer hadn't gotten far.

"Nope. Buffy. Just got a call."

Angel sighed in relief. She'd never be able to make Angel not care for the blonde slayer, but now she had a bit of proof where his heart lay.

"How?" Cordy exclaimed as she followed the two men out of the kitchen and the house.

"She escaped. In hiding right now. And we have no portals."

Dammit. Their one advantage was gone.

"Dawn is tapped out. Must be something to do with what happened with the slayers."

Or maybe the fact that their girl they call the Key was playing with powers she had no business using, but Cordy wasn't going to lecture Giles on that, just yet.

They had two vehicles left, an old van and the SUV. Spike jumped into the old van and revved the engine.

"Let's go save the girl, shall we?"

Angel grinned in response. They both looked surprised when Cordy joined them.

"Someone has to keep you two out of trouble."

She still tingled all the way down to her toes, Angel was in a better mood, and Buffy had escaped from that shithead Mark. What else could go wrong?

* * *

"The slayers are now at full power again."

Roger sighed. His plan was not working the way he thought it should. The dragon that Mark had sent to intimidate Giles and his bunch of misfits did not work out. Things were chaotic. With a little prodding though, he possibly could bring many of the slayers under his control now. No more trying to kill Faith and create another slayer.

"How many have been rounded up?" he asked the man standing next to him.

"At least twenty. They have no idea who they are. That would definitely be to our advantage." The man sported a black eye and a split lip. Minor inconveniences in Roger's estimation of the issues at hand.

"We will begin training immediately. Keep looking, Donovan. Gather as many slayers as you can. With no memories, we can finally build the army that we have always wanted."

Donovan quickly left Roger's study, quietly closing the heavy wood doors. Roger wanted to dance a little jig. His son and Giles had lost all control of the situation, giving him the advantage finally. Soon, all the slayers except for Buffy and Faith would be under his control. Nothing would stop him. Not Giles, or Wesley or that blasted Mark.

* * *

The scissors weren't all that sharp, but Faith didn't seem to mind. Hiding was the priority, not vanity. She did feel a bit sad as she watched her long locks fall to the floor. It must have taken her a long time to grow it out like that. Flashes of a hand combing through it made her shake her head a few times. Picking all the hair up, she tossed it into the trash can and exited the bathroom in a hurry. The next bus was leaving shortly. By then she'd be out of cash, but she had put some distance between herself and whoever might be after her.

Her stomach rumbled loudly as she found a seat toward the back of the bus. No one bothered her, so she curled up into a tight ball and drifted off as the bus swayed back and forth. It wasn't until she was jolted awake that she realized that she had gone farther along on the bus route than she had intended. The driver complained that she hadn't paid the full fare, but when he realized that she didn't have anything else to spare, he let her go with a warning. End of the line without much cash left.

With what little light was left of the day, Faith made her way over to a small pub. As she rummaged through the garbage cans for something to eat, she startled an old lady who was taking out what was left of someone's dinner. Instead of calling the cops on her, the lady offered her the leftovers gladly. Feeling relieved and less hungry, Faith knew she needed a place to sleep for the night. In a small, sleepy village, there probably weren't too many alleys out of the way that someone wouldn't notice a sleeping girl. She'd have to keep a move on, maybe find a house that was empty so as to not arise suspicion.

It did take a few hours, but she finally figured out that a lone house just outside of town was not occupied. As quietly as she could, Faith broke into the back. It had all come too easy to her. She knew how to break into people's houses. She knew how to forage for food. Shit, what kind of life did she lead? After making sure the place was abandoned, she found a place to bed down for the night. She would need all her strength for the next day. Feeling like someone was coming for her, like she was running from something, Faith only hoped that in the morning, things would be clearer and she would have a direction.

The house looked to have been abandoned for some time, but she did find a threadbare blanket that someone had overlooked before moving out. Slowly drifting off to sleep on the bare floor, Faith prayed that she'd get her memory back and all would be well.

What she hadn't counted on were the nightmares that followed. Knives slashed, strange people disappeared into dust. She screamed at people who seemed to want to help. There were fights with a girl with long blonde hair, fights with a guy twice her size in the rain. Blood flowed freely from wounds covering her body. Hands bandaged her, coaxed her into fighting yet again. Those were the same hands that stroked her back, brushed her hair, made her scream with ecstasy. Until she saw them covered with blood from the knife that she now had in her hands.

"Why did you kill me, Faith?" he asked as he fell to the floor.

"I didn't kill you," she screamed over and over as she watched him dying before her eyes.

"You did," he said as he took his last breath. "I was your watcher."

* * *

Wesley awoke with a rush. His head still sported a knot the size of an egg, but as he gingerly probed the wound, he figured out that it had almost healed. Was it possible the wound wasn't as great as he thought? Slowly, he sat up in the bed that he and Faith had shared for the past month. The pillow still smelled of the lilac-scented shampoo that she had been using. A pair of her pants still sat on the floor where she had deposited them not too long ago. If he had time to cry about her fate, now wasn't it. Holding onto the bed frame, he managed to get his legs moving and to the door. It was too quiet outside that door.

Making his way down the stairs, he discovered why it was quiet; it seemed that he had slept all day and into the middle of the night. Giles had obviously given up his own room, because he lay sprawled on the too small sofa, attempting to sleep with his glasses askew. Books littered the floor, papers covered several surfaces and a phone lay face down on the table.

Willow exited the kitchen, armed with a steaming pot of tea and mugs. Not wanting to frighten her, Wesley spoke up right away so the witch could not potentially burn herself.

"Willow, what time is it?"

She jumped anyway, but managed to not spill her contents on the floor.

"Two a.m. Giles was just taking a break."

Giles snored a little loudly, moving his arm to a more comfortable position. Wesley wished that his sleep had been more like the older watcher. Instead all he could remember was a nightmare about Faith hiding under a cupboard.

"Everyone else?"

Willow sat the heavy tray down as quietly as she could, moving a few books as carefully as she could.

"Spike, Angel and Cordy took off after Buffy. She escaped from Mark."

One piece of good news for the day. That also meant that Buffy knew who she was.

"She remembers?"

"She does. She doesn't have all her slayer strength back either."

Willow sat down over Giles's legs, bending hers over his. He didn't stir.

"Nothing about Faith, I gather."

Willow shook her head no. Faith could disappear and no one would know where to look.

"Giles has people looking. He seems to know a lot of people in the area. We'll find her. She didn't have that much money on her. We do know that she caught a bus not ten miles away."

Giles knew the area much better than Wesley did. The man grew up here. Hopefully that was an advantage.

"Fred and Gunn are taking care of the other girls with Connor and Dawn pitching in to help. They're calm right now, thank goodness. Otherwise, everything is hunky-dory."

Willow almost snorted when she said that last word. Everything was not hunky-dory. Everything had gone to hell in a handbasket and then some. Picking up a book, Wesley sat down to flip through it, to see what Giles might be researching.

"We have no idea how the slayers regained their power. Just doesn't make sense. Giles also wanted to talk to you about Isabella."

And he wanted to talk to Giles about the girl also. He could sense that something wasn't quite right about the girl. Her own mother knew that the girl was different. He just hoped it was something they could handle.

"She's different."

"Ya think?" Willow sarcastically agreed. "How's your head?"

Much better, he was just thinking. After blacking out, he thought he'd awake to one enormous headache, followed by possibly puking his guts out because of a concussion. Neither seemed to bother him. On the contrary, his stomach rumbled at the thought of food.

"Better than I thought it would be," he commented as he rubbed it absently.

"How about the rest of you? Any twinges, aches, need to blow shit up?"

Willow knew of his urge to either punch or dispel some of that negative energy. He had been working with her the past few weeks to curb that urge and release all the tension. It had made a little difference because he had managed to throw Spike across the room only once. Luckily she wasn't frightened of his power and was firm when needed.

"If you mean a need to pummel Spike or Angel, no. Nothing. I feel fine."

"Hmm. Could you hand me a pencil? Kind of stuck here."

Willow looked quite amusing with her legs splayed over Giles, him still snoring loudly as they talked. Wesley got up to hand her a pencil, but she shook her head no.

"I was thinking that floating might be the better way."

Wesley complied, sighing when the pencil landed gently in her hands.

"Oh boy."

"Indeed."

"Will you two shut up?" Giles mumbled, trying to turn and finding that Willow pinned his legs down.

He thought that Willow should be smiling as he complied with her request competently and without trouble. Confused, he slowly sat back down, grabbing the arm rests tightly as he did.

"Vail's power. It's gone."

Wesley should have been glad that Vail's evilness had left him, finally. Only he could still conjure up magicks. Sure, the pencil was a tiny test to his abilities. He didn't have time to contemplate the fact that his head felt lighter, his heart beat strong and his stomach not tilting from a knowing blackness inside. Was he cured? And if he was, where on earth did Vail's power go?

"Maybe," Willow followed his train of thought. "Maybe not. Go eat. I can hear you tummy rumbling all the way over here."

It felt good to actually feel again, if just to feel hunger. Sadness and rage that Faith had disappeared followed at a close second, but first things first. They'd have to find her, then go after her and catch her. Catching her would prove the hardest.

"Right. Isabella is sleeping?" he inquired as he made his way to the kitchen.

"Yep. Like a baby."

It had been Isabella, that he was certain. She had somehow rid him of the blackness that had been eating away at his soul for the past couple of years. How had she managed it? He had assumed that Willow and Giles had kept a close eye on the little girl after they had concluded that she had wielded powers they had no idea she possessed.

Pausing in the doorway, Wesley thought he just might wake up a sleeping Virginia and grill her. That could wait a little longer. Neither Giles nor Willow was jumping up to do the very thing he wanted to do. Giles was grumbling at the redhead to move.

"You're quite heavy and I would like to get up."

"Me? Heavy?" Willow sulked.

"No, not heavy. I mean with you sitting on my legs," Giles managed to stutter back, obviously embarrassed about what he said.

"Yeah, right. I made tea."

Wesley raided the refrigerator of anything that was edible, raced upstairs to take a shower and get down to business. He hadn't felt this rested in years. Whatever Isabella had done to him, it seemed to have worked, at least for the short term. He'd take advantage of it, and use that energy to find Faith.

* * *

Author notes: Wow, did that take a long time to write. I know exactly where this story is heading. Just not enough time to do it. I'm almost finished with school. Hopefully then I can work on both my stories. Thanks for sticking with this. I just love this series so much. I've realized now that I need to get back to the basics with this series, so much more Wes/Faith is in store. I feel that I've been ignoring them. Please review at any time. I love reviews or just a shout-out to me that you're reading. Enjoy!


	6. Unforgettable

**Chapter Six-Unforgettable**

Faith's back hurt something fierce, along with the headache that was forming at the front of her skull. Her stomach joined the chorus of aches and pains. Her mouth was dry and tasted like she'd eaten rocks. Slowly, she stretched her arms over her head, heaved herself up into a sitting position, and proceeded to cry. What amazed her was the fact she had enough liquids in her body to be able to cry.

Must be the lack of food, she thought. Crying didn't seem to be something she did very often. She didn't know whether to hold it all in and just let it go. Crap, she couldn't even remember how to cry? How bad could her day get? The pitter patter of rain as it started hitting the windows just made it worse. Any scavenging of food would not work so well. Soggy mess. Yuck.

Sliding the holey blanket to the floor, Faith gingerly raised her body off the cold floor. The wood looked old but well cared for. Not too dusty, which probably meant whomever had lived there was a neat freak and had moved out not long ago. Moving over to the window, Faith attempted to look outside at her surroundings.

The door creaking open had her spinning and taking a fight or flight stance instead. She wasn't expecting visitors. Just her luck. Someone did live here. Only as she looked at the person at the door did she realize that it was the lady who had given her the food yesterday.

"Oh dear. I didn't mean to startle you, sweetie. I just thought you might want to join me for breakfast."

Here she was, breaking and entering, sleeping on the floor and this lady wanted to feed her?

"I guess," Faith managed to get out finally.

"I'm sorry to say that Serena didn't tell me that you'd be visiting this soon."

Who in hell was Serena? Was she supposed to know someone named Serena? Crap and double crap. This memory loss thing was for the birds.

"I didn't know I'd be visiting this soon either."

"Well, pay me no mind. Serena is a bit forgetful. I was so sad when she moved away."

Maybe if Faith didn't speak, she'd learn all she needed to know and wouldn't have to make anything up. The lady was the talkative type. And generous to boot.

"Yeah, sad."

Moving around the room, the lady opened one of the windows to let some fresh air in. Faith shivered a little, only wearing her jean jacket and a t-shirt underneath. She really didn't want to see a mirror much less look in it.

"I hope that she left you some proper linens. I know that she discussed making sure that the house was stocked for guests."

Stocked for guests? Faith looked around at the barren room, the tattered blanket on the ground. Now she was thinking that this lady had lost her marbles.

"I do believe that I haven't properly introduced myself. Lady Sybil Hartworth at your assistance."

The lady stuck her hand out to be shaken. Faith followed suit, but realized that her own hand was cold and clammy. Lady Sybil Hartworth didn't notice one bit, or her upbringing made her not notice. Taking her by the hand, Sybil opened up another room. If Faith had been more adventurous, she would have tried the other doors. A bed, bare of sheets, sat behind this door, with the rest of the bedroom furniture. Sybil opened up the armoire, pulled out some sheets and set to work making the bed.

The lady in question waiting on Faith hand and foot couldn't be more than fifty years of age, but the grey hair tucked into a messy bun could make her anywhere from forty to seventy. The crisp corners that she made with the sheets told Faith that Sybil was used to work. Her hands were delicate, almost childlike. Sybil chatted about nothing as she made the bed efficiently.

"There. I am so sorry that you had to sleep on the bare mattress. Serena should have known better. I'm afraid her mind isn't what it used to be. Where are your bags, sweetie?"

Now she was going to be caught up in the lie. Sybil would realize that she wasn't a relative of this Serena woman and would throw her out on the street, possibly calling the cops.

"Lost. They're not sure where they ended up."

Sybil put her foot down in protest. "Oh dear. That will not do. I must find you suitable clothes to wear until they do. Blasted airlines."

Faith thought it was amusing that Sybil would get angry at her lie about the luggage.

"That's OK. I'll manage."

"You will do no such thing. Now I'm sure that Serena left some things, plus I will gather up some undergarments and toiletries."

Sybil opened up a small closet and pulled out a dress. A dress. Did Faith wear dresses? Hell if she knew. It was clean though. Kind of pretty in a floral way. Right now Faith didn't care if Sybil dressed her in pajamas. It would be good to get clean and have grub.

"But first things first. You must be fed. Come with me. A girl must keep up her strength."

With that, Sybil quickly led Faith back to where she had met the older woman the evening before. A few more steps and they were at another door. Whatever that smell was, Faith's stomach growled in response. Was Sybil her guardian angel or what?

* * *

"OK, now where is she?" Spike wondered out loud for the tenth time. "This is exactly where Buffy told Giles that she would meet us."

Angel looked out the van's front window, waiting for some kind of sign from the slayer. Nothing.

"Why don't we just get out and look?" Cordy suggested.

Not like Angel hadn't thought of that. Only the neighborhood they were parked in wasn't the nicest. The three of them would stick out like a sore thumb. An hour had come and gone with no sign of Buffy. If she didn't show up soon, they'd have to chance it and hunt for her.

"Neighborhood's a little dicey, Cor."

"Not like it wouldn't be dicey for Buffy, huh? If she's not at full strength, don't you think we should be a little more proactive?"

Why was Cordelia right? Here he was taking Buffy at her word for them to not lurk around outside the van. There was no lurking at all. They were just waiting. They were actually listening to her instructions.

"Blast it. I can't wait around any longer," Spike announced as he opened his door.

"Spike's right," Angel agreed as he opened his door.

Why did it seem like this was some kind of setup? It was foggy, damp and downright crazy to try and find Buffy in this kind of weather. This was always the kind of weather Angel had loved to hunt. Humans didn't see you coming with the fog and the drizzle. He could smell their fear a mile away.

"You stay here," both Spike and Angel said to Cordy.

"No way. Too damn creepy."

Cordy pushed her way out of the van as Angel tried to see into the mist. A hand was placed into his as he shifted away from the safety of the van.

"We shouldn't get separated," Cordy whispered to him. "I can't see shit."

Angel knew of this area as a warehouse district and a drug dealer's paradise. At this early hour, they all were passed out somewhere, not any trouble at all. He just hoped that Buffy had found a good place to hide until they found her.

"Any ideas, Spike?" Angel asked.

"None whatsoever. Not like we can go yelling Buffy. Might disturb something we didn't want to disturb."

Angel could feel Cordy's hand tighten on his considerably.

"What might that be? Because if you say vampires, I'm not going to be happy."

Angel was thinking more along the lines of human bad guys, but she may be right. Anything could be lurking in the shadows.

"So we go all nice and quiet like."

"Oh, hi guys."

All three yelped at the sound of a voice behind them.

"Will you three be quiet? Don't want to wake the dead."

Spike was on Buffy before Angel even had time to turn around. Angel tamped down the feeling of jealousy as he watched Spike make sure that Buffy wasn't injured in any way. Way too much touching though. Cordy frowned his way, but said nothing. Now what did he do?

"We should scram. I don't know if I was followed."

While Buffy and Spike grabbed a seat in the back, Cordy slid into the passenger side front seat as Angel started up the van. As soon as they got back to Giles's house, he'd have to have a sit-down talk with Cordelia. Something was up with her, he knew it. As he put the van in drive, Cordy screamed. Really, he had only glanced over at her. In front of him were at least three vampires, all in gameface. This is what he got when he let his guard down, he thought.

Revving the engine, Angel mowed the three down without the least bit of thought.

"Buffy, I think you were followed," Spike added as Angel squealed the tires of the van.

* * *

Wesley paced the floor, and then paced some more until Willow told him that if he paced any more, she might put a hex on him. Not believing that she could, he ended up outside anyway, just in case. Only Giles paced on the porch. The man looked tired, having stayed up most of the night. Wesley felt a little guilty having rested. He needed to be ready to go for Faith at a moment's notice.

Giles put one finger up for Wesley to stay put as he talked with someone on his cell. A smile spread across his face, making Wesley wonder what kind of good news he could have received. It could only be one thing.

"Yes. I do understand. Please protect her as best you can. I'm sending her watcher as we speak. You don't know how much this means, Sybil."

Wesley was literally jumping up and down. Someone had found Faith.

"Yes. Take good care of her." With that Giles hung up his cell and pumped his fist into the air. "It does pay to keep on good terms with relations. That was a cousin of mine. She's found Faith."

"Finally some good news. Where?"

"Malmesbury. You should be able to get there in short order."

Before Giles had finished the sentence, Wesley bounded down the steps to the only vehicle left at his disposal.

"Wait, Wesley. She still does not know who she is. It may take some convincing for her to come back with you willingly."

Willingly or not, Faith was coming back with him if he had to wrestle her to the ground and tie her up. His jaw ached a little at the thought of him trying to subdue her. Just because she couldn't remember didn't mean she couldn't still be a slayer. Her strength was still a significant part of her being. It was only her memories that were erased.

Running back into the house, Wes grabbed a duffel, stuffed a few changes of clothes and was out the door quickly. Only Dawn blocked his way to the SUV.

"Coming with," she announced to him, holding the blasted keys to the vehicle.

Connor came up behind Wesley with two more duffels.

"Please take care of the children," Giles called out from the porch.

"Giles," Dawn screeched. Connor just rolled his eyes.

The old man wanted to get rid of the two youngest in his charge. The two of them must be driving him to distraction.

"We're your backup," Connor explained to him as he threw the two duffels in the back.

Connor could still fight even though he didn't remember his past. Dawn still had that brain of hers even though her days of opening portals seemed to have ended. They both were wildcards, something he may not be able to handle if it came to trying to extract Faith from wherever she had holed herself up.

Dawn babbled about a road trip, tossed him the keys, and settled down in the front passenger seat. Connor did not complain one bit about riding in the back. That meant Wesley had to drive.

"Hey, you know where you're going. We're just here to observe."

Dawn was right on that count. He didn't want either one of them involved with this. What he wouldn't do to be alone on this? They could possibly help convince Faith to come with him quietly though. He alone approaching her could scare her off.

"Cousin Sybil is really a nice lady. Don't cross her though," Dawn said with all seriousness.

"Why?" Wes asked as he pulled out into the lane beside Giles's place.

"She'll kick your ass is what. How do you think she'll keep Faith safe until we get there?" Dawn said with a smile on her face.

Wesley rolled his eyes in comment. Another witch to whom he'd have to explain himself. He bet that she would not tolerate Wesley taking Faith against her will. He'd just have to explain to Sybil that it was in Faith's best interest to come with him quietly. He certainly did not want to have a showdown with Giles's cousin.

"Plus, you know how to drive on the wrong side of the road," Connor added.

Wesley laughed at his observation. Indeed it would be a good idea to get there in one piece. His wounds had healed, he'd shaved the night before and actually didn't look like a crazed lunatic, which he most definitely had the past few months. Possibly Lady Sybil would believe that he was Faith's watcher and responsible for her and release his charge to him without comment. Knowing Rupert Giles the way he did though, if his family were anything like he was, Wesley was going to be in for a challenge.

* * *

Doyle banged the phone against the desk a few times just to make himself feel better. It didn't help at all. Throwing it up against the wall, the blasted thing broke into pieces in front of him, narrowly missing Lindsey's head as he walked in the door.

"That can't be good," he told the Irishman as he slowly closed the door behind him.

"The Powers are idiots, I tell ya. Fucking idiots. I will not sit around while they mess it all up."

Doyle was breathing hard from the exertion of throwing the phone and the anger boiling up inside of him. He'd done so many things in the past for those damn Powers That Be. He'd sacrificed friends for the greater good. There was no way he was going to follow these orders. No way in hell.

"Be that as it may, we have a job to do."

Doyle stalked over to where Lindsey was standing. So he was their errand boy now. So be it. If there was a way to send Lindsey back to the hell he had inhabited before, he'd do it. Lilah would know how to do it. He'd consult her right after throwing Lindsey out on his ear.

"They can shove their stinking job where the sun don't shine," Doyle pointed directly into Lindsey's face.

"Hey, I didn't say I liked it."

Was the man serious? Lindsey had been doing their dirty work since he had arrived in this realm. Innocent, guilty, it didn't seem to matter to Lindsey, only the job getting done.

"Then what'll we do about it?"

Lindsey glared at him some more, then snarled back at him.

"Not much else to do, now is there," he answered back, not much conviction in his voice.

Those long legs attached to that curvy body never knocked, but her timing was impeccable. Lilah strolled in, placed her hands on her hips like she knew exactly what was going on. She always seemed to have sources where he had none.

"What a bunch of wimps," she chided the both of them, pushing Lindsey aside.

He could tell that Lilah was one woman that Lindsey would deck given the chance. Only he let her pass this time. The man must be convinced that she could help. Doyle crossed his arms over his chest, bringing himself up to his full height. It meant nothing to her because with the heels, she was still taller than he was and a lot tougher looking than he could ever be. Damn, what had Pryce seen in her?

"Not sure to what you're referring. This is a private meeting."

"Grow some balls, Francis. If we don't do something to stop those Powers that Fail Miserably, they're gonna have a run on the place."

Lindsey nodded silently, knowing full well what was going to happen if Doyle let the Powers do what they had intended.

Oh how much he wanted Cordelia back, if just to deal with Lilah and Lindsey. She could handle those schemers. He could not.

"You want to tell me what in hell is going on?" Xander commanded from the door.

Directly behind him were his henchwomen Jenny and Anya, both peering over his shoulder to take in the scene.

"Oh goody, the gang's all here," Lilah offered, stepping to stand beside Doyle.

"So, now that we're all here. Why are y'all here?" Lindsey wondered out loud.

Doyle thought only he and Lindsey were privy to the plan that the Powers had wanted them to implement. Obviously there were leaks in the system, or Lilah had somehow tapped into that system.

"Rumors, innuendos, whispers in the dark. Call them whatever you want. Doyle, whatever they want you to do, don't."

Xander was right. It was most definitely not the right thing to do. The Powers had assured him that it would stop the bad from coming around though. Did he have to take their word for it? Were they such a threat where they needed to be taken out?

"We need to fix this," Lindsey suggested to them all.

"Tell you what? Tell us what in hell you were going to do and maybe we'll help."

Xander, the ever helpful carpenter. He certainly would not want to help with this chore that was for sure.

"Nah. Xander, I'm sure you don't want to kill innocent people, now do you?" Lilah countered.

"OK, not good. Explain."

Anya tensed up beside Xander. She's a smart one, Doyle thought to himself. She's probably already figured out some of it.

"Who do they want Lindsey to kill to restore the balance?" Anya supplied to the rest of the group. "It's all about balance with those idiots."

Doyle forgot that Anya was older, much older than the rest of them. She'd seen things in her time that none of them could even venture to face.

"Revenge. Pure and simple revenge," Lilah countered. "I know that for a fact."

They all looked at her for a clue. Doyle hadn't even thought of that at all. He had taken the call at face value, understood that something had happened that wasn't right. He needed to right it.

"You know who's responsible for this, don't you?" Lindsey asked his former associate in crime.

"Killing the three of them is not going to right any kind of balance. There's gotta be something else behind this," Lilah said as she paced the floor.

"God, the suspense is killing me. Who?" Jenny finally blurted out.

"Cordelia, Wesley and Fred. They're supposed to be dead. We're supposed to finish the job."

As much as it hurt Doyle to say that, he certainly wouldn't wish it either. Wanting Cordelia back for himself was selfish. Lindsey would agree with him on that. The man would not want Fred back just because he was sweet on her.

"I think it's time for a coup."

Was Lilah serious? They all could get banished forever just talking about it. Did she have any idea what she would be facing? The Powers did not mess around. Cordelia knew that, had been a part of that.

"Whoa. Messing with big powers there," Anya pointed out to the group.

Lilah circled Doyle's desk, propped her hip onto the side of it and crossed her arms. Thank goodness he never met her in a court of law. Formidable opponent. Angel was lucky to have survived her.

"I didn't mean we have to take them all down. Too many to count. One. There is one Power that we take on. We win, no killing."

Where was she getting all of her information?

"Where are you getting all of your information?" Doyle countered, hoping that it was all made up and they could go back to being guardian angels and not rabble rousers that would probably get thrown into a hell dimension for good.

"The very man that wants the killing done offered me your job, Doyle."

"Shit," Lindsey groaned.

"We're screwed," Xander added.

"Finished," Anya exclaimed.

"Kaput," Jenny added.

Lilah rolled her eyes at the bunch. "None of you have any faith in me."

"Nope," Xander told her.

"If he doesn't stop those three, he's finished as a Power. We convince him we're on his side, stop him. No one dies. Everyone is happy."

And what's in it for Lilah? There's always a but in these stories, Doyle concluded.

"Just the people I wanted to see," the man who entered the room announced.

Doyle had no idea who this person was, but he had an idea.

Lilah straightened up, almost like she was frightened of him. Lindsey did a little of his own straightening. Anya only glared at the grey-haired man. She obviously knew him too. Only he, Xander and Jenny were in the dark about the mysterious stranger.

"Hello, Francis. We've not had the pleasure. My name is Holland."

Dammit to hell and back. The Power that wanted Cordelia, Wesley and Fred dead. There was no way he was complying with this guy. No way.

"Nice to make your acquaintance. Name's Francis Doyle. How may we be of help to you?"

* * *

It was kind of like the dress was made to fit her. It hit her curves perfectly, wasn't tight or binding. Perfect, except no shoes. Sybil eventually found a pair of flip flops that would fit though. Faith didn't care. The dress made her feel beautiful. At the last minute, Sybil pulled out a hat to match. They were going to grab some lunch, and then possibly visit the abbey in town. It could be seen from miles around, so Faith was sure it was the main tourist attraction. Walking down the street with Sybil telling her the history of the town, she heard a screech of tires, but paid it no mind.

She would enjoy this day. The weather was perfect, her outfit was perfect. Only her memories were just gone, along with her sense of identity, a purpose in life. She only knew that her name was Faith. She kind of wished that a boyfriend or husband would show up and claim her. Romance novels aside, that probably would not happen. This was the real world. That possibly had dragons in it, but maybe they were real too.

While Faith was off in lala land, Sybil had stopped behind her and was speaking with some tall guy with sunglasses and a great big scowl on his face. He stopped talking as soon as Faith turned to him. He really did look familiar, but she couldn't place where.

"Faith."

He knew her name. Did he know who she was? Could he be that knight in shining armor she wistfully dreamed about the night before? Yeah, right. That never happened.

Pulling off his glasses, Faith was able to get a good look at his eyes. That's it. That's where she remembered him. He was a little scruffier, a little more banged up before. Shit, she should have realized and scrammed when she heard the voice. Damn memory.

Slipping off the flip flops, Faith turned to leave.

"Don't leave," the man told her.

It was almost like he'd shot her and turned her inside out. Once upon a time, she'd heard him say that. The memory was there, just ready to burst free. Only in her muddled mind, it couldn't make it all the way out. Was he friend or foe? Did he mean her harm?

"Why shouldn't I?" she announced as she turned to look at him again.

"I know this is confusing. If you would just come with me."

Sybil stepped in front of her. Compared to the man with the blue eyes, Sybil was tiny, Faith not much bigger. It wouldn't take much to get through Sybil to her.

"Young man, you will not under any circumstances take Faith anywhere until I am sure of your intentions."

The man sighed, dropping his head. Was he conceding to Sybil?

"Rupert explained her condition to you, did he not?"

It kind of sounded like she was mental or something. She definitely wasn't crazy, that was for sure. Was she?

"This is exactly why I will not let you take her until she is comfortable with the situation. Don't you agree, Faith?"

Faith felt like cowering behind Sybil, letting her take the tall man on full. Being a coward though probably wouldn't make him go away. He looked kind of persistent. Looking into his eyes, she saw something more. Concern for her well-being?

"Yeah. Who are you?"

The man in front of her smiled. Damn, if he was her knight in shining armor, she was one lucky girl.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."

With that announcement, Sybil slapped him on the face, in the middle of the crowd. People stopped and stared at the scene.

"Go away, Pryce and never come back."

Sybil grabbed her arm and led her away from the tall man with the melt-worthy smile. She must know something that Faith didn't. Looking back, she saw the man throw his arms up in defeat. Whatever it was that Sybil knew, it might take her some convincing to let her talk to this Wesley guy again. She looked to be working up a full head of steam.

"We'll see if Rupert agrees with me on this. No Pryce will ever touch you, my dear."

"He could be a nice guy," Faith added as they hurried down the street to Sybil's house.

"His father is a snake, grandfather worse than that."

That's the information she had wanted. Sybil had history with the poor guy's relatives. Didn't make someone a snake if his father was one. Faith sighed, wondering if he was going to follow them. She bet that he did. He didn't look like he would give up that easily. Besides, if he smiled like that at her again, she might just go with him willingly, family history or not.

* * *

Author notes: Holy moly did that take forever to write. With Faith's memory gone, it's taken my writing ability along with it. There's so much in store in the next chapter or two. Wesley has to convince (as in woo) Faith back, even though she doesn't know what in hell is going on. Angel has to deal with Cordelia. Spike has to deal with a less than slayer Buffy. Doyle has to deal with all the shenanigans in his realm. Do you think that Holland is a Power? Just wait and see. It's not going to be good, I'll tell you that. Xander is going to prove just why he's one of the good guys. Will Lindsey though? Is Lilah starting to turn over a new leaf and join Doyle? Eeeek. I also did pick a real town as the place where Wesley finds Faith. It's a lovely little town with an abbey.

Thanks to all who are still reading. I know this is a long series. I just love these characters so much in this series. I know I need to update my other story too so if you're following that also, more on the way for that too. Please review! Any time.


	7. You Oughta Know

Warning: A little sex and a little violence, but nothing graphic in this chapter.

**Chapter Seven—You Oughta Know**

Wesley sighed in frustration. Rupert's relative would not make this an easy transition. Faith needed to be watched closely, not coddled by some witch with a score to settle against his family. He just wished he knew what his father had done to Sybil.

"That didn't work out," Dawn said, stating the obvious.

"Always the charmer," Connor added.

Giles just had to saddle him with the two most sarcastic young people in all of England.

"Does either of you have any other ideas? Instead of stating the obvious?" Wesley reminded the two, violently placing his sunglasses back on his head.

"You definitely don't want to mess with her," Dawn concluded, backing away from Wesley's anger.

"Who? The old lady or Faith?" Connor interjected as he stepped back also.

The sun beating down on Wesley's head was giving him a headache, in addition to a possible sun stroke. Even though the weather was mild, he sweated underneath his jacket. Nothing seemed to be going his way. Once Faith was back under his charge, then he could figure out why things weren't working on all fronts.

"Sybil, you doofus," Dawn smiled at Connor.

"Faith can still kick his ass."

Indeed she still could. Only she couldn't remember why she needed to in the first place. A fresh start for the both of them? Eventually Willow and Giles would figure out why this was happening and things would go back to normal.

"Dawn, go speak with Sybil, imploring her that the situation is indeed dire."

Dawn put her hands on her hips. "One, not so dire. Two, who made you the boss of me? And three, could I at least get a please?"

Wesley growled a little under his breath. Dawn was one of the most exasperating girls ever known to man. Why Connor hung on her every word amazed him.

"Please," he ground out. "Connor, let's find accommodations. We obviously will be staying for a while."

* * *

Holland was obviously staying for a while, Doyle thought. Getting comfortable behind Doyle's desk, he spread out his arms for Doyle to sit down. Not wanting to box himself into a corner, Doyle propped his hip on his desk, not Holland's desk.

"How do you like your new position, Mr. Doyle?"

Liking? Hell, if Doyle could go right back to the way it was, he would. He didn't like it one bit. Being the henchman seemed easier. Not worrying about others, other than Cordelia, seemed easier. Worrying whether Xander or Lilah or one of the others assigned to him would break a rule and end the world as they knew it, wasn't easier at all. If he could have heartburn, he would.

"Fine," Doyle answered back, figuring that one word answers might get him out of the office and on to something else.

The way Doyle figured it was not so simple though. The man showed up for a reason. Sacrificing Cordelia, Winifred and Wesley was apparently a big deal to the Powers. It damn well was a big deal to him. Refusing to bend to their will might not be a good idea. If it was their idea in the first place. Somehow he thought not. Holland must be manipulating the situation.

"I heard nothing but good things about you. Now, if you'll just take a seat."

"Right here's fine."

"Mr. Doyle, I'd like to get to know you."

By the looks on Lilah and Lindsey's faces, he most certainly did not want to know this Holland character.

"Busy day."

Doyle crossed his arms over his chest, showing a bit of defiance in the request. If he played too nice, then Holland would think something was up. If he played it too angry, then Holland would carry out his plans and Doyle would be left out of the loop.

Holland rose from behind the desk, holding his hand out to be shaken. Doyle complied with just enough hesitancy. Keep the man guessing.

"I certainly understand how busy your job must be. I'll be going. I do hope to meet with you in the near future. All of my employees are special to me."

Whoa there Nelly. He was employed by the bastard? Since when? He'd never really had a supervisor per se, just the Powers Who Call on the Phone with Instructions. Something was up. Something big. Not just putting a contract hit out on three people who by all means should still be dead.

"I do like being special," Doyle answered in turn.

After ushering Holland out the door, Doyle leaned against it with a sigh. Power struggle with the gods? Or maybe even a coup? Doyle wasn't going to wait around for Holland to show his motives. Doyle would start digging ASAP, starting with Lilah and Lindsey. Not only did they know Holland, they knew how to find information that few were privy to in this organization. It was beginning to sound more and more like the dead Mafia. Running numbers and whacking people that didn't make them happy. What happened to helping the human population? What happened to being the good guys?

* * *

Spike rubbed his head again, thinking that it was time for a change. The dark hair just didn't suit him. And it might bring him out of whatever funk he had landed himself in if he just went back to the way it was. The Billy Idol look really did suit his personality much more than the sullen poet.

Buffy sat pouting beside him. He could tell that she was royally pissed about the whole situation. Sniffing herself, she buried her head with her arm against the window.

"The big brains will figure this out," Spike said confidently.

"They better," he heard back, muffled by the sweater that she was wearing.

"Being neutered isn't fun," he interjected, earning him a slap to the shoulder.

"I don't need advice from you right now."

Bumpy couldn't begin to describe the ride that Angel was giving them in the van. Giles mostly used it for hauling supplies, not people. The seat dug into his back, jarring his spine when Angel hit another pothole.

"No advice, just stating fact."

Buffy sat up from her pouting position and turned to point directly in his face.

"I had nothing to do with that chip."

Past is past, he has always thought. Not with the lady sitting next to him.

"I didn't say you did. In the end, it worked out."

It worked out that he got his soul for a girl and died saving her. Was that working out in his book?

"Used it to my advantage, maybe. Look what it got you."

He ended up dead. Or deader than he was. He still wished he knew who had sent that amulet to Angel. Was it someone who wanted to annoy Angel or someone who wanted to help Angel?

"Going up in a blaze of glory is what it got me."

Buffy looked a little stunned. They hadn't discussed what had happened in Sunnydale that last day. Hell, they hadn't had a real conversation at all since she found out he was still around and kicking. If it wasn't one crisis after another, maybe they would have had the time to hash it all out. They had seemed to make peace with one another before the final battle. Or had they? Spike was feeling a bit put out by her attitude towards him. Like she was angry that he was alive.

"Everything I do, I do it for you," he mumbled to himself.

"Enough with the song titles, Spike. Why can't you have a serious conversation with me? Why can't you say hello to me in the morning? Why can't you actually look me in the eye?"

Serious conversations with Buffy almost always ended in tears, mostly for her. She was winding herself up with no backup in sight. Both Angel and Cordelia were minding their own business up front, whispering angrily to each other if Cordelia's face was any indication of how their conversation was heading. He had no answers for any of her questions.

"Why didn't you contact me when you came back?"

"I thought that maybe you had moved on," he finally told her, watching as her eyes filled up with tears.

"Moved on? Do you know how much it hurt watching you go up in flames?"

Probably just as much or more than watching her jump to her death to save Dawn not two years before. He went out on top. Why ruin it?

"I was there. Remember? I had my reasons."

Buffy turned, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. "Those reasons of yours weren't good enough."

They were his own selfish reasons, emphasis on selfish. Starting over could have been a good thing. Only he almost died yet again, before he could tell Buffy how much he still cared about her.

"You're right," he finally announced. "I wanted you to remember me for what I did, in the end. Hard to top that."

"Talk about selfish."

Buffy had moved closer to him, slowly putting her head on his shoulder. He thought that maybe she'd fallen asleep finally, lulled by the bouncing of the van.

"Don't do that again," she whispered to him.

* * *

"Don't do that again."

Wesley couldn't quite figure out what he had done. If following Faith was wrong, he would be wrong and admit it. Following Faith was amusing to say the least. He'd never seen Faith wear a skirt much less a dress. Sure, he'd seen her wear makeup, but not like this. The way she dressed, the way she acted was a bit too virginal. Not Faith at all. Slowing his breathing down a little, he realized that no matter how Faith presented herself, she'd still be attractive to him. Now if she would just let him touch her.

"I'm sorry. I'm not following you."

He indeed was physically following her, just not her train of thought. If he could just get her to see his point of view, then they could head back to Giles and Willow and get her back to her old self.

"Yes, you are following me. Stop it. And don't play with my hair."

He had sat down quite close to her in a café not far from where he was staying. She hadn't seen him approach, so he took advantage to get as close to her as possible. Cutting her hair shorter, now the curls danced in the breeze, just making him want to touch them, if just a little. Only Faith hadn't cooperated and had turned to surprise him.

"I know this is difficult."

Faith's sunglasses hid her eyes, but he could see her eyebrows rise in anger. He needed to diffuse the situation. Earning her trust would be key to her coming back with him unharmed. He would hate to have to tie her up and throw her into the back of the SUV. Resentment wouldn't earn him any points and might earn him a fist.

"I don't know who I am. I have this guy following me everywhere. You could be some crazy psycho or something."

Wesley contemplated his next move. He had to convince her that he was safe.

"Would you like to have dinner tonight?"

Faith pulled down her sunglasses to look at him directly. He did the same. The sun shone bright that day, making the colors around them seem all the more bright and inviting. The greens of the grass nearby, the flowers in bloom, the red door down the way, the yellow tables where they sat. If he could just slow down time and take in this picture, like taking a snapshot and holding it forever, he would. He moved closer to Faith. She didn't move away.

"That would be nice," she answered, a little breathless.

"Good. I'll be around to fetch you at 6," he cheerily agreed, getting up from his position of almost kissing her silly. She even looked a little stunned that he didn't make a move right then.

"Oh, yeah. Six."

Why did he have to smell so good, Faith thought? Her brain was screaming at her, that he was playing with her. Only her heart was thumping a little harder and faster when he moved closer. Would the old Faith have let him do that? Somehow she thought not by what Dawn had told her that morning. Dawn had described her as a tough as nails woman who took no prisoners. She could fight just as hard as any guy, harder than any guy was how Dawn described it, in detail. Some of the scars that Faith had found on her body kind of proved her point. Faith has a feeling that Dawn was holding back a lot of information, some of it which probably wasn't pleasant.

Why would some English guy named Wesley even like her? She had gleaned from Dawn that they worked together. Office romance. That could be bad or good. She had two hours to get ready. Sybil wouldn't be happy, but Faith had to keep digging about her past. It would eat at her if she didn't know.

Two hours later, Faith stood in front of the little cottage, dressed in another one of the frilly dresses that she found tucked away in the closet. Maybe the dress was a little over the top, but the red silk felt wonderful on her skin. There was nothing revealing about it at all, with the lapels and sleeves half way down her arms. The swing skirt on it made her feel like dancing. The belt that went with it made her waist look tinier than it really was. The red lipstick matched the dress, although she only had on plain black shoes. Red shoes would have been better. Looking down, she moved the skirt so she could see the shoes. Only she saw two male feet step directly in front of her.

Raising her eyes, she saw that this Wesley character did clean up really well. His shirt and tie suited him. His rounded eyes told her that maybe she had pushed the envelope a bit far on her choice of dresses. Frowning, she turned to go back into the cottage to change. Before she could make it very far, Wesley stopped her with a hand.

"Is there something wrong, Faith?"

Everything was wrong. Here she was, pretending to be a real girl, all dressed up for a date. Somehow it felt a little wrong.

"I just thought that maybe I was over-dressed. I'll just go and find something else. I'm sorry."

His eyebrows rose considerably at her rambling. "Oh no. You look lovely. Quite lovely in fact."

"Oh. So, I'm OK?"

Right at that moment, Faith really wished she remembered how to kick some butt instead of standing there, not able to form a coherent sentence because some guy said she looked lovely in a dress.

"More than OK. Shall we?" Wesley offered his arm.

It was a nice evening to stroll. The shoes she'd borrowed from Sybil didn't pinch much, although she'd have blisters in the morning. If she kept up with this kind of wardrobe, she'd definitely have to go shoe shopping. Faith didn't know if she knew how to shop. The only clothes she had with her weren't in the best of shape. The jacket was nice, but the jeans and the shirt were thin and had holes.

They made it to the restaurant without much trouble or her falling down (damn heels). The nice, quiet spot they were led to made Faith a bit nervous, but she figured that if things didn't go well, she could just walk away. It wasn't like the man would tie her up and kidnap her. He really did seem nice.

After the small talk and the entrée, Wesley cleared his throat like he had to make an announcement to her. If he still thought she'd go with him without explanation, he was wrong. Even with no memory, she knew she was still a stubborn person with a mind of her own.

"Faith, I know this all must be so confusing."

"Just a little. No, a lot. I know my name. I know how to tie a shoe and how to cross the street. I don't know who my best friend is or where I live. I do know that you want me to just get in a car and leave with you. Not sure that's such a great idea."

"We work together."

"So. And what else."

His eyes softened at the what else. She was wondering if there was a what else.

"I care about you. And you about me. We've been through a lot together."

Faith flashed momentarily, the two of them, back to back, fighting for their lives by the looks of it. The flash didn't hurt, it just disturbed her. What they did was really that dangerous? Maybe she should have believed Dawn when she said that Faith was tough.

"I assume when you mean a lot, you mean good and bad."

Taking her hand in his, he shook his head in agreement. "More good than bad. But yes. We've not always seen eye to eye."

Another flash, of Wesley standing directly in front of her, looking like he needed a few days sleep, pointing in her face. He didn't look happy with her, at all.

"I bet."

This wasn't how she thought their dinner would turn out. These flashes she was having weren't making any sense. The emotions she sensed weren't either. Putting her napkin down, she slid out of the booth where they were sitting, hoping to get away from him and the visions, if just for the night.

Wesley caught up with her half way through the town. Taking the heels in her hand, she made better time. Before she made it to the next street, it started to drizzle, only to start pouring before she even turned down the lane where the little cottage sat. The dress was probably ruined. That made her sad because it really was a beautiful dress.

He followed her to the door. Turning, she watched as he came closer, looking wet and worried. Huddling under the small covering over the door, she tried the lock a few times, hands shaking from the cold rain or possibly from fear. Wesley took the keys from her hands, but held them, not opening the door for her.

"Why did you run?"

Because she didn't want to remember.

"I saw you. You were angry with me. Looked like hell too. We were fighting for our lives at one point. Oh god, this is just too much."

Wesley steadied her, pushing the door open. Faith felt the heat of the room on her back, but she still didn't go all the way in. Another flash. This of Wesley, shirt off, her kissing his various wounds. Next flash was neither one of them with clothes on. Sucking in her breath, she staggered a little. He again steadied her, this time keeping his arm on hers. It burned where he touched her. Why did all the visions she was getting have to be about sex? Gasping again, she grabbed onto him, hoping that they'd stop. She couldn't form the words for him to just get out so she could recover.

"What are you seeing, Faith?"

She ended up in his arms, with him holding her upright, tight in his embrace. When she was finally able to breathe again, she spoke.

"Did we really have that much sex?"

Not exactly what the first thing out of her mouth should have been. He'd been holding her closely and wasn't letting go any time soon. She didn't know whether he wanted to devour her or run into the rain. She'd choose devour. In the dark cottage, she couldn't tell what he wanted to do. Winding his large hand through her wet hair, he gently placed a kiss on her lips. Damn, that was not like any of the flashes she had gotten. He seemed to be a very demanding person in those. Pulling her even closer, he intensified the kiss to the point where she couldn't breathe. Gasping for breath, she broke the kiss, only to have him dive in for her neck.

If she didn't stop this, it would turn out exactly like her flashes. That might be all good, but this Faith didn't know him. Sensing her hesitating, Wesley stopped his roving hands and mouth and looked at her.

"I…," he started.

"You should…" Faith continued.

He unwound his hand from her tangled hair, backing away, running into the doorjamb as he did.

"I really should."

Neither one of them could form a complete sentence. Hurrying towards her, he hungrily kissed her, backed up again and made it out the door.

"Tomorrow," he said from the rain-soaked yard.

"Yeah," she said, waving at him.

Damn, those flashes really needed to not creep up on her like that. She could almost feel the steam rise from her damp dress and hair. Getting a good night's sleep would really be difficult. The flashes had stopped, thank goodness. It was the interesting feelings he had left her with that was the problem. Almost jumping him would not help matters one bit.

* * *

The cold rain and the walk back to the hotel would cool him off a bit. So Faith was starting to remember. Some of her first memories were about sex. That didn't surprise him. The one memory of his being angry at her surfaced also. He just hoped that she understood the whole and not take the bad times out of context.

Thinking too much always seemed to get him into all sorts of trouble. Turning the corner, he encountered a vampire in an alleyway. He hadn't even sensed the creature until it was directly upon him. With no stake in sight, he'd have to fight it until he could improvise. The thing was larger and stronger than he was.

Wesley looked around for anything that was wood. Backing up, he wondered if he took off running that the vampire would pursue him. It didn't seem as if it was a fledgling. He would wear Wesley down, then either snap his neck or suck him dry. Or both. Circling around the vampire, Wesley finally noticed a rake on the side of a fence not twenty feet from his position. If he could somehow make it over to that spot, he may be able to use the wood for a stake.

Only this vampire wasn't just going to let him walk over and retrieve the rake. Wesley would have to work for it. He was hesitant to use any magic against the creature, fearful that once he did, the magicks just might control him. Wesley may have felt somewhat stable at the moment. That didn't mean he was in reality. Giles had warned him to not use anything unless absolutely necessary. Rely on your instincts, he had told Wesley.

Luckily his fighting instincts were still intact. He held his own, barely, against his opponent, although his ribs were starting to ache from the few punches that had landed against his chest. Why hadn't the vampire gone for the kill? Or did this vampire just like to play with his prey? Sprawled on the ground, Wesley rolled to almost reaching distance of the rake. A kick to the face stopped his progress, making Wesley roll to the other side and out of harm's way for the moment. Blood ran down his face from a cut on his eyebrow, bruises were forming all over his body, and his hand bloody well hurt from hitting this thing. His strength was ebbing. Too bad the fence was metal.

A leg sweep and a well-placed kick put Wesley on the offensive, just enough time to finally get his hands on the rake. Only it wouldn't break as he pounded it into the ground. The vampire advanced, not in the least bit worried about the long piece of wood attached to the pointy metal. So Wesley decided to use it as a club. He was able to get a few good swings and one good hit out of it before the vampire wrenched it out of his arms, which in turn flipped Wesley onto the ground hard. That knocked the wind out of him for a moment. The vampire stood over him, smiling in triumph. Feeling around in the grass, Wesley found another option.

As the vampire picked him up by his coat front, Wesley thrust the small branch into the vampire's chest. He'd gotten lucky. The branch was there all along. Wesley just hadn't seen it in the darkness. Dust flew everywhere, making Wesley cough. Not breathing very well, he hunched over to try to draw some air in his lungs. He just hoped he hadn't punctured a lung somehow. After gaining a few moments respite, he staggered back the way he had come. Faith's little cottage was closer than the section of town in which he was staying. She could call for help while he figured out how to breathe.

It took longer than he thought it would take, but he finally made it back to Faith's cottage without attracting any other attention from anything bad. He had thought from talking to Giles that this town was relatively free of vampires or other creatures of the night. Something about Sybil protecting the village and its inhabitants.

Wesley slumped against the door. His vision grayed a little. Passing out now wouldn't get him the help that he needed. With his good hand, he pounded on the door for Faith. She was a light sleeper. Being a slayer had made her somewhat jumpy at night. She often had slept better during the daylight. Pounding again, he hoped that she was showering or just possibly avoiding his presence.

The door opened and he tumbled inside, hitting his sore ribs. More bruises to go with the bruises he had earned that night.

He heard Faith chanting "oh my god" about fifty times before he passed out.

* * *

"Stop, stop, stop. Pull over, you asshole. Oh crap, that hurt."

Damn right, it hurt. Angel had swerved in traffic, slamming on his brakes as he felt the vision too. Why did the visions have to hurt, Cordy thought? If the PTBs wanted them to actually help people, why'd they have to make it hurt? Sacrifice was one thing, helping when your head was falling off from a damn vision, that was another. They were lucky Angel hadn't crashed the van.

Angel's hand slightly rubbed up against hers, shocking the daylights out of her.

"Don't touch me," she growled back.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to," Angel answered back, digging for his cell phone.

"What? What's wrong?" Buffy yelled from the back of the van.

"Vision. Wesley's in trouble. Dammit, that hurt."

Cordy rubbed her temples, knowing that it probably wouldn't help much. Only time and a few pain killers would help her. Although if she kept going like this, her head would possibly explode. Not a great vision to have.

Angel contacted Giles, who contacted Dawn and Connor because Wesley wasn't answering. They weren't anywhere near where Wesley was. Dawn and Connor could take care of it. Even if Faith didn't remember anything, they could still get her to help. He'd be alright, Cordy hoped. He was just fighting a vampire and losing.

"Try calling him again," Cordy implored.

"I tried. Giles tried. Connor will find him. Don't worry."

Hell, don't worry, he said? That's all she did lately, other than argue with Angel. Being the worrywart of the group really got on her nerves, her very last nerve. Why couldn't she just be human and go on with her life? Because the Powers just loved to mess with her. They want her, they don't want her. They employ her, they kill her, they mess with her love life, they make her a goddess, not all in that order. Then they decide that she could be human again, with the visions. Back to square one.

Cordy could see that Angel looked a little green around the gills. Before she could ask him how he was, he shook his head no.

"Excuse me. I'll be back," Angel said, quickly opening the door and puking in the grass beside the road. Oh man, she was so glad it was just the splitting headaches with her.

"We should find a place to stay," Spike announced, getting out of the van's sliding door. "I could drive, but he might not make it back before puking his guts out."

"I think he's already doing that," Buffy agreed, grimacing.

No way was she saying to him "poor baby". She was not the mother of the group. Grabbing a water bottle, she handed it to him and backed up. He was pale, way too pale for the new and improved Angel. He had color in his cheeks, had a farmer's tan on his arms.

"This didn't happen the last time, did it?" she asked him.

"Wasn't as bad. This is bad."

Wesley dying was worse than any of the things they were experiencing, so getting in touch with him was more important. Spike managed to find them a couple of rooms to stay for the night. Frankly, she didn't care one way or another, except for the fact that Angel looked like hell.

Dawn called back not two minutes after she collapsed on the bed in the room she shared with Buffy. Wesley was alive, had gotten the crap beat out of him, had a few bruised ribs. That's all that mattered. Connor had made sure that the bad guy was gone, there were no more bad guys to encounter. Faith, of all people, with no memory intact, was taking care of him.

The door opening to the room made her crack her eyes open just a little. Spike whispered to Buffy, then came over to her bed.

"Angel's wanting to talk to you."

He handed her a pain killer and some water as she slowly rose up out of bed. Good man, she thought. Slowly making her way to the next room, she opened the door to find Angel sitting on the bed, looking a little better. But he was weaker, more subdued than she'd ever seen him. This wasn't the crazed Angel that had lost his son or the Angel that had fired them all so long ago. He kind of looked defeated. That wasn't good.

"Hey," she said quietly as she sat down next to him. "Holding it together?"

"Barely. Now I know, how you felt. Feels like my insides are gonna come out. I bet your head feels the same way."

Yeah, brains all over. She'd had more dreams about her head exploding than she cared to mention.

By the looks of it, Angel had taken a shower and cleaned up. He was bare-chested, jeans unsnapped. Cordy would never get over how gorgeous he was. Tough guy with a goofy side. Taking his hand in hers, she squeezed tight. As she looked into his eyes, she could see the slight crinkle as he smiled her way. Angel never smiled. When he did, his whole face lit up. It was rare, usually directed at her. She never missed seeing him smile. Only this was a sad smile, one of regret and longing.

"Your friends up there really don't have a sense of humor."

Until she had traveled up into the PTB realm, they didn't have a sense of humor. She'd brought a bit of lightness. Now they were repaying her with pain and sorrow. And inflicted it on Angel too. That was not playing fair.

"They never knew what to do with me."

"Yeah."

He hadn't stopped studying her face, like he wanted to remember it just the way it was.

"You're beautiful, you know that?"

With the head-splitting visions, the friends in trouble at the drop of a hat, the fact that her best friend was probably gonna die a horrible death right alongside her because of the visions, she didn't want to feel beautiful. She couldn't even remember exactly how old she was.

"Kind of feel like a crazed lunatic right now."

He moved his free hand to cup the side of her face. It was so warm, so unlike the way it was when he was a vampire. A cursed vampire who could only hold her, cuddle with her. He wasn't a vampire anymore. Why hadn't she remembered that?

Warm or cold, the shock of him kissing her was enough for her brain to calm down, the headache to subside, the misery to fade into the background, if only for a few moments. Only he wasn't going to stop at just the kiss. His hands roamed her body, setting her on fire. She didn't think they'd ever get this far. The curse was always there, hovering over the two of them. The only time they'd ever been together had been in his mind, making him turn into Angelus. Now, that wouldn't happen. He could just be Angel.

"Don't turn evil on me," she whispered in his ear.

He chuckled, but didn't slow down.

* * *

Author notes: Wow, this took forever to write. I think I'm in a better place in my mind to start writing again. Hopefully you'll get more chapters really soon. Hope you like. Have fun and keep commenting.


	8. Complicated

Chapter warnings: Some sex (not graphic at all) and some violence (still not that graphic). You've been warned.

**Chapter Eight-Complicated**

Everything hurt. His head, his chest, his eyes. Ouch, why would his eyes hurt? Even one of his feet ached. Dammit all to hell, when was he not hurting? Wesley had sported more bruises, cuts, scrapes, gouges, burns, possibly than any man known to have existed.

The only saving grace was his side was quite warm. Faith had decided at one point during the night to attach herself to his right side. Luckily it was not as bruised as the other side. It still hurt somewhat, just not enough for him to complain about the pressure she exerted as she slept cuddled up beside him.

As gently as he could without waking her or crying out in pain, he shifted to look down at her face. Scrubbed of makeup, her face looked to be made of porcelain, making him wonder if it would shatter one day when he wasn't looking. Not that he hadn't seen her sans makeup. She was just never this peaceful as she slept. Slayers unfortunately tended to have vivid dreams, making Faith's face contort while she slept. He often watched her in the early morning hours, just to study her features.

One hand was tucked underneath her body somehow, while the left one had draped across his bare chest, practically branding him with its warmth. If only he didn't hurt so badly, he'd make sure she knew how much he wanted her back, even if she didn't know who Faith was.

Ignoring his painful ribs, he shifted slightly again, attempting to get more comfortable. Faith then placed her leg over his, pinning him to the bed in his weakened state. As helpless as a baby, he could only lie in wait until she stirred. She snuggled closer, plastering her body against his side. Her hand inched up until it reached his shoulder. Then her leg slid up his ever so slowly. She was torturing him.

Nuzzling his neck, Wesley wondered if she knew exactly what she was doing or was she still asleep? Trying not to breathe too heavily, Wesley attempted to wake Faith, only to have her nip at his shoulder blade.

"Faith, you should stop," he finally implored her to do.

No reaction other than the hand that had previously attached itself to his shoulder had made its way lower, almost to his hips. Even asleep, she did know her way around his body. Moving her hand away with his, she didn't give up, simply trying again. He couldn't just lie here and let her arouse him, then wake up and possibly injure him more than he was presently.

"Enough, Faith. Please wake now."

Her hand stopped, her head lifted off his chest.

"Woah. What happened?" she announced groggily.

"You were sleeping and I needed to move, only it's quite difficult to move when one is pinned to the bed as such. Also, I didn't want to startle you."

Faith looked down, checked that her hand had moved to an entirely inappropriate place on his body and lurched up, pressing down on his chest. Pain shot through his entire body, making him grimace with the gesture.

"Oh god, I am so sorry."

Pain and pleasure with Faith. He had experienced it all.

"Just don't press on the ribs. I know there's none broken, because I can actually breathe right now."

Sitting upright, Wesley also noticed that Faith didn't have much on either. A thin camisole top and her undergarments were all that covered her. The room was warm, parts of his body warmer, especially where she still touched.

"Sorry. I must have fallen asleep last night. You were so banged up I was afraid to sleep anywhere else. Plus, there's no other furniture in the house."

She was concerned about him, so much that she risked sleeping in the same bed as he did, not really knowing him or possibly trusting him.

As he shifted his position, he realized that she somehow had stripped him bare the night before. If the sheet that covered him moved any lower, Faith might not be so forgiving if she noticed that he was excited from her closeness.

"If you would, could you please find my clothing? I think that if I move around this morning a bit, I might work some of the kinks out."

Only when he turned, the sheet drifted lower. Jerking it back up his chest, Wesley gritted his teeth at his sudden movement. Faith's eyes went wide. Only her memory was gone, not the fact that she was a female of the species. Her face colored a bit as she realized his predicament. Instead of backing up and giving him his space, she placed a hand on his chest again, hopefully this time not to press down and cause him more pain.

"Sounds like a plan," she told him as she moved closer to him.

What on earth was going on in her head, he thought as he watched her move closer? He really tried to slow his breathing, but watching as her lips gently touched the bruises on his chest, it just didn't work. She made her way up to his shoulder, placing a kiss where the vampire had tried to take a chunk out of it, and then on to his ear, which didn't seem to be injured in the slightest. Closing his eyes, he savored the brush of her breasts against him as her lips made their way to his brow. If she had her way with him, who was he to argue?

The cut on his lip stung a little as she traced it with her tongue. He hadn't even realized that she had straddled him until she made contact. Please don't let her still be dreaming, he thought. Only as she deepened the kiss did he realize that no, she was not asleep and had fully expected him to participate. His arms closed around her, trying to not aggravate any injuries any more than he could manage.

A shriek and an audible sigh were heard off in the distance. This was why he hadn't wanted to play babysitter to the two. They could possibly get in the way, like right at that moment. Faith moved away quickly as Dawn slammed the door to the bedroom. Faith slipped out of the room as fast as she could, not looking at him as she dressed. Handing him his clothes, she grimaced, then left him to dress on his own. And possibly to try and calm himself. He hoped that there was hot water in the place.

* * *

The headache wasn't as bad as before, Cordelia thought as she awoke that morning. Usually when she had a vision, it could go on for days at a time. It mostly had disappeared, only leaving her feeling a little disoriented. She definitely wasn't back at Giles's cottage. Where in the hell was she?

A large, warm hand sat on her hip. Her hip didn't have a stitch of clothing on it. As a matter of fact, she didn't have anything on, except maybe for a sheet to ward off the chill of the room. She also realized who that hand belonged to, which made her sigh. They'd gone and messed with the relationship again. Why did it have to be so complicated? She didn't do complicated, especially with Angel. Except that she did. It had been complicated from day one.

He hired her. Big mistake. Doyle gave her those damn visions to help Angel. Another big mistake. Wesley had joined them. Angel let him. Big mistakes that just kept piling up until everyone ended up dead or damn near close to being dead. Can't get more complicated than that? Only she was now alive in addition to him being human, they just had massively satisfying sex in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere in England, Angel's ex was in the next room and she really had to get up and go to the bathroom. See? Complicated.

She didn't want to do complicated. Her life in high school in the "Before Buffy" phase was not complicated at all. She went to school, shopped, hung out with her friends, occasionally went to a funeral, and life went on. The hand that had been across her hip now moved possessively to her stomach. See? Even more complicated.

Buffy showed up, stopped a few apocalypses, made their lives so much more complicated and didn't even apologize. Then Cordy had to go fall for one of the Scoobies, gotten herself involved with the gang, making herself a target for all the undead, complicating her life yet again. Even when she dumped the bastard Xander for two-timing her, it still was complicated. The hand moved up underneath her breast. She wanted to yell at him to stop complicating her life, but she couldn't because it felt too good.

Then Wesley entered the picture, looking all sophisticated, when he wasn't, messed it all up, then her father lost every last dime. More complications. No house, no money, no college. What else was she supposed to do after high school? Get the hell out of Sunnydale, to uncomplicate her life. Only it wasn't that easy. Angel had saved her from that icky vampire, offered her a job, attempting to make her life less complicated. Only it didn't work. She went from out of work actor, to lackey, to vision girl, to demon, to dead. And being dead was so much more complicated than being alive.

A part of her wished that Angel would keep his hand to himself, but he was touching her, making her feel wanted. Now that wasn't too complicated. Then she realized that he was as naked as she was, making that abundantly clear as he spooned behind her, moving his hand over her. She could definitely deal with this every day. Now if that wasn't complicated, then nothing was.

* * *

"So?"

"So."

"You sleep well?"

"Lumpy bed. But it beats sleeping on a cold, concrete floor."

Buffy had made her way to the shower, coming out with wet hair and a clean face. Spike could smell the shampoo that she used as she passed by him. She smelled wonderful. Much better than yesterday.

They had the room to themselves since the night before. Buffy grumped about the sleeping arrangements, and then quickly drifted off to sleep before he even had a chance to answer back. He figured that good ole' Mark probably didn't keep her in a luxury suite. The comment about the hard floor confirmed his hypothesis. Buffy was nothing to Mark other than a means to an end. Spike could never figure out what she saw in the bastard. Kind of like he'd never get what she saw in Angel.

Did it bother him that Angel was in the next room, possibly having the time of his life with the cheerleader? He didn't dislike Cordelia at all. The fact that the two of them had patched up their differences would make it more pleasant for everyone. Boy, could the two of them fight. He'd take fighting with Buffy any day over her quietness. She'd been too quiet since they found her.

"I'm done in there, if you want," she finally said.

"Oh, sure. Might clear some of the cobwebs. One thing? Are you OK?"

Great, here he had to go and open his big mouth. All she needed the night before was a warm bed. Could she possibly need more? Did he want more?

"What? Why wouldn't I be OK? I was kidnapped yet again by my crazy ex-boyfriend. Tortured a little, by the way. My other ex-boyfriend is getting it on in the room next door. Man, these walls are thin. I'm sitting here with you, another ex-boyfriend, not knowing what to say or do. I guess I'm just getting tired of the ex factor in my life. Maybe I should become a nun."

Buffy a nun? Not in this lifetime. She was right though, he thought. She had lousy luck with boyfriends. They all were either evil to begin with, turned evil during the relationship or became evil after she broke up with him, present company excluded on that one. That Italian sleaze really did need a fist to the face.

"Is there anything I can do?" he gently asked her.

Buffy sighed, closing her eyes. "Nope. Don't turn evil though. That would just suck."

"Not planning on it anytime soon. In case you haven't noticed, I age now, just like you. Getting too old for this shit, if you ask me."

Buffy snorted in laughter. It was nice to see her laugh for once. It had been a long time.

"Go take a shower. You stink."

Always honest with him was Buffy. He just hoped she hadn't used all the hot water in the place.

* * *

"Anything?"

Giles sighed in frustration. "I've looked at, gone through, read, skimmed, researched, I've even threatened a few people, but I cannot find anything to help Faith. I've come to a dead end at the moment."

Willow felt his frustration, not finding anything either. On top of trying to fix the slayers, a few of them had disappeared in the night. Gunn and Fred couldn't keep their eyes on all of the girls and their watchers weren't having any more luck either.

"Dawn said that Wesley's gonna be alright, although she did snort into the phone when I asked her where Faith was."

Giles slammed the book shut, abruptly standing from his dining room table. A few books slid to the side and to the floor. Usually Giles was very careful with his books. Willow was thinking that right about then they were just making him angry. If a book could make one angry, that was.

"I may have to contact Roger. I see no other way. He must be in control of several slayers at this point. A truce would be in order I'd say. I could possibly get my hands on more sources."

Willow did not like that answer one bit. Wesley's father had tried to kill them, or at least hurt them all, but he definitely tried to kill his own son.

"Yeah, and you could possibly get put in that dungeon, or worse, hurt. I don't think that Roger is going to cooperate with us. Why don't we take a break, and come back fresh and ready to research."

Another book slammed to the ground, this one purposely flung by Giles's hand. She knew he had a temper, hell, she'd been on the receiving end of that temper. Of course, she was going to destroy the world over her grief, so yeah, she understood where he was coming from.

"These girls trusted us to keep them safe until they were trained and ready to fight. I've let them all down, Willow. I cannot stand by while Roger uses them as weapons, not caring in the least for their welfare. He'll get more of them killed just because he wants to be the boss. It doesn't matter if he's fighting evil forces. Using whatever means necessary is not always the right way to do things."

Willow knew he was right. Looking around, she wanted the answer to just pop into her head, wanted to point to the right book, so they could at least have a theory. Only when a little girl entered the room, Willow groaned in frustration. Isabella stood not two feet from Giles. Why hadn't she noticed the girl before?

"Hello, Willow."

The girl was too young, Willow chanted in her brain. She had no training, no way of knowing what would happen to her. Only she had seen with her own eyes the fact that Wesley was now walking and talking and not trying to kill anyone. Something was different with this little girl. She had to be the key to all of this. She'd bet money on it.

"Isabella, could I ask you a question?" Willow started.

Giles turned his head funny to her, almost like he was trying to ascertain what she was going to ask. He had no idea at all.

Willow approached the little girl, took her hand, and then felt her insides melt into a raging fire. The only thing she heard before she passed out was Giles screaming for her to let go.

* * *

Faith paced back and forth in the empty living room, trying to think of a way out of what she had done back there in the bedroom. She would have ripped that sheet right off of him if Dawn and Connor hadn't shown up. Why did he do that to her? She didn't know him. Wesley was a stranger. Not so much anymore, at least in the sense of the flesh. She needed to slow down, take it easy, get to know him better before jumping his bones and screwing his brains out. Oh geez, she really did need to get a grip.

Limping slightly, Wesley entered the room, fully dressed in the clothes he had on the night before. The sight of dried blood made her cringe. She wished she would have been there to help out. Whatever had attacked him could have done more serious damage.

"Oh good. You're both dressed now. Although Wes, you really need a new shirt."

Dawn was right on that count. Connor handed a large bag over to him, while Dawn spread out a blanket on the ground. The smell of fresh baked goods reminded Faith that she had not eaten since the night before and even then she hadn't finished her dinner before rushing out. Wesley promptly left the room with the bag, which probably meant decent clothes.

Faith's stomach growled as she watched Dawn unpack a feast before her eyes. Sybil must have something to do with this, she thought. She must have gained a few pounds since landing in this small backwater town. Dawn wasn't even finished before Wesley reappeared, hair wet, clothes changed, bruises looking worse by the minute.

No one talked much while those first bites were taken. Dawn kept looking at Connor, who looked at Wesley, who really didn't want to look at her, but still sat beside her at least. No one wanted to bring up what happened to Wes the night before. It was killing her. They obviously knew.

"Wanna tell me how you got the crap beaten out of you?"

Wes slowly put down his scone, rearranged his napkin, and fiddled some more with his plate.

"Faith, what do you remember before coming here? What you are?"

"What I am? I'm just a girl."

Connor shook his head no. "Just a girl who could kick our asses without breaking a sweat. Well, him I mean. Not so sure about me."

"You're strong. You help fight evil. Sometimes evil isn't very pretty. Or human."

"Huh? OK, I know I saw that dragon. There are more things that aren't human that are bad guys?"

"Yeah, something like that. There are some demons that are nice, some that aren't so nice."

"Demons? Oh crap. You people are crazy."

She'd had enough of the crazy talk. Getting up off the floor, Faith started to exit the room to get some fresh air. Only Wesley's voice stopped her.

"I was beaten by a vampire, whom I managed to stake fortunately. Faith, I know that all of this must seem so out of place, but trust me, you're a good person who fights bad things."

Only she knew deep down she wasn't a good person. Flashes of her screaming at someone, a piece of wood bloodied, a man dying because of her. Her heart started to pound as her head flashed images of a piece of shattered glass cutting into a chest. The same chest that she was attempting to make better not just a few minutes before.

"Oh my god, I tortured you."

Wesley turned a shade of pale. Struggling to get up, Connor helped him to a standing position.

"You did. I cannot deny that our history hasn't been rocky."

Faith backed away from him, not sure now about why she even stayed.

"Rocky? Did I try to kill you?"

"No, you did not. You took your hurt out on me. I have forgiven you. We have forgiven each other. Just let me explain."

Faith shook her head no, hoping that the three would just leave her alone, let her process what her brain was seeing. She felt the sting of sharp glass as the both of them sailed out a window, landing hard on a car below. Her body was battered, bleeding in a shower as she beat the hell out of it, only to be nursed by Wes. He yelled at her, kissed her senseless, defended her, made her who she was right up until her memories disappeared without a trace. Were these her memories or his?

"I don't understand."

Wesley looked at his two other companions, gesturing for them to leave.

"You sure, because I don't want to pick you up and bandage you again?"

Wes growled a little at the girl, making Connor grab her arm to get her to leave.

Once the door had slammed shut, Wes turned to her, a look of regret on his face. He definitely did not want to be here right now, she thought. Not like either one of them had any choice in the matter.

"You are the most exasperating female that I have ever met. I didn't know whether to hate you or hug you the first day we met. You could not give me the time of day. You were lost, alone, or at least you thought you were alone. I didn't understand what you needed then. It has taken us years to realize that we are meant to be with each other."

Dammit, now here he went with all the mushy stuff.

"What is this meant to be shit? Just like I was meant to be whatever a slayer is. One and only. I have to die to call another one. But wait? Now there's thousands, so I don't need to do shit anymore. Or do I? And now you tell me that we're meant to be, fate and all that."

"Not fate. I've had enough of the forces working against us and for us to believe that this is just fate. This was never predetermined, us I mean. We've had to work at it every single step of the way. I am not going to give this up just because you cannot remember."

"What if I can't ever fully remember? I keep having these flashes, but they mean nothing to me. They hurt. I don't want them. Just make them go away."

She remembered from long ago, him watching her train in some kind of self-defense. She hurt herself, not badly, but enough that she stopped. He helped her up off the floor, but she shrugged away from him. Even that brief contact made her head spin. He looked so young, so not ready for her. All she wanted from him was acknowledgment that she was special. Now that she was getting that, she couldn't remember why in the first place.

Making his way over to her, he took her in his arms, enveloping her in an embrace that must have hurt his injuries. It felt too nice, too warm, too inviting to let go.

Why'd she have to let her guard down? Here was this guy, who said that he cared for her. Now why was he looking down at her, eyes swirling with madness? Shit, what happened in those few seconds? Then faster than she could move away, he had her dangling from his strong hands, by the neck. If he didn't let go, she'd suffocate. Flying across the room, Faith hit the wall at mach speed, slipping down the wall to crash to the floor.

Well, at least now she remembered everything. Whatever jolt had crashed through him had also crashed through her. And it hurt like fire, in addition to her head and a few other places hurting on her body at the moment.

Trying to follow him outside, Faith realized that her arm had to be broken, so she definitely couldn't subdue him. Connor and Dawn didn't have any more luck than she did because they were both unconscious.

"There now, wasn't that simple?"

Sybil stood next to Mark, the bastard, congratulating him on messing with Wes. She could tell he had no idea what was going on, like he was in some kind of trance state. The portal opened and the three disappeared right before her eyes. No Wes. She so did not want to lead the charge to find him again. It still burned in her brain like fire. Not only could she not think straight, she possibly had a concussion from slamming up against the wall. Why was nothing simple in their lives? Faith didn't do complicated. Except she did with Wes around. Now she needed to go get him back, again. Heads were gonna roll. Mark was going down.

* * *

Author notes: This took so long to write. I hope there are still people out there reading. I really want to finish this. I think we're heading for the big showdown/climax of the fic. Just stick around for more. Please review when you can. Thanks a bunch.


	9. History Repeats Itself

**Chapter Nine—History Repeats Itself**

"I'm OK. Just let me go."

Giles didn't want to let Willow go. He wanted to comfort her, make sure that nothing else ever hurt her again.

The little girl stood not two feet in front of them. Her eyes glowed red, her expression very similar to what Buffy had looked like fighting Adam so long ago. Willow wasn't afraid either, but he was. Everything he evaluated up until this point suggested that Isabella was possessed, with something.

"Oh, that's it," Willow exclaimed. "Thank you so much, Isabella."

Isabella chose at that moment to go back to normal, or whatever normal was for a little girl of that age.

"You're not sick anymore," she explained as she sat down on the sofa, legs wiggling all over as she did.

"Willow, what just happened?" He really did have no idea at this point what Isabella had done to the witch.

"She's not a slayer, Giles. She's a healer."

Willow pulled a book from the pile that had landed on the ground. All he could read was the word history before Willow started turning pages furiously. Setting it down on the table, she ran her finger over the words, brain probably translating as fast as she could. Giles didn't want to ruin her concentration, but what in bloody hell did this all mean? Looking over, he noticed that Isabella had curled up into a ball, fast asleep, which was exactly what she had done after touching Wesley.

"Right here. It's all right here. Angel and Cordelia's vision wasn't quite right. They just assumed that she was a slayer slayer."

"I'm not following Willow," he added as he scanned the text.

"She is a slayer, only not that kind of slayer. When we were trying to figure out why Kendra was called what seemed like a million years ago, I remember reading about a slayer with special powers. OK, not that slayers don't have special powers, but I mean really special. So special that most don't last very long. They're usually hunted and killed. She's a healer, Giles. She can fix things that no one else can."

The translation said as he read along that there had been a slayer, too young to fight, born from another slayer.

"They tried to protect her as best they could, but could not in the end," Giles read out loud. "She died a teenager, attacked and declared a witch. Her mother and her mother's watcher could not stop her death. Her mother died soon after, killed by a vampire. She was the oldest slayer on record, including Buffy and Faith, I might add."

Willow looked over the text again. "Thirty-six. Wow. Don't tell Buffy I said that."

"But Isabella's mother isn't a slayer," Giles concluded, not really knowing if that was the truth or not.

"Sure about that? There's thousands running around out there. We just don't know."

"There she is," Virginia said as she entered the room. "She's an early riser. Makes sleeping in a challenge."

Giles could tell that Virginia did not trust them. She had every right not to because at the moment he didn't know what to think of the girl or her mother. If Willow's theory was correct, then it was very possible that Isabella wouldn't live to be an adult.

"She's fine. Not a problem at all," Willow hastily declared as she shut the book quickly.

* * *

"The situation has gotten out of hand. I would like to discuss your options to solve this issue."

What situation? Doyle had no idea what was going on. He had people working behind his back. He had some so-called lawyer, evil at that, who supposedly was a Powers That Be, breathing down his neck. The situation wasn't under his control. So it wasn't "his" situation.

Holland Manners stood directly in front of him, arms dangling down at his sides, face neutral. He'd hate to play this guy in poker. Except since Doyle was an excellent poker player, he was also an excellent reader of human gestures. Holland's fingers twitched slightly, like he was anticipating something happening very soon. His eyes squinted a bit, telling Doyle that he wanted Doyle to act in a certain way, possibly to do his bidding. Even Holland's stance was a bit more on the aggressive side. This man was definitely not relaxed.

"Options? All I know is we have a kidnapped watcher, lots of pissed off slayers, a couple of witches who would just love to take some heads off, and a little…," Doyle stopped his train of thought right there. Did Holland know about the little girl?

"Do you understand what is really happening here? Those powers from Cyrus Vail must be eliminated. To have them be possessed by a human could be devastating."

Doyle's eyebrows rose in curiosity. "So what you're telling me is I need to stop Mark and his merry band of misfits?"

"No, what I'm telling you is that the person who possesses Vail's power must be eliminated. I could care less if that Mark person survives. In the scheme of things, he means nothing."

So he wants Wesley killed, again. Only that's not what Evil Guy said. He didn't name Wesley specifically. That made Doyle wonder if this Manners guy knew what was going on. Either that or he was scared of Wesley.

* * *

The next vision hit Cordy like a ton of bricks. Angel could not catch her in time, but lucky for him she wasn't in the bathroom with hard tile. She had passed over the threshold of the room, wanting for Buffy and Spike to get a move on so they could get back to Giles and Willow. Landing hard on the carpeted floor, she screamed out in agony. He saw what she saw. Little girl, in pain obviously. Wesley was attempting to save her, only it wasn't working. Faith was down for the count. There were other bodies, possibly dead at that point, surrounding the scene. He made out his own prone figure off in the distance, dead eyes staring straight back at him. Holland Manners walked through the devastation, took Wes by the throat and snapped his neck. Only the girl was left. The vision ended like that, way too vivid.

Angel's stomach rolled, but he kept it together if just for Cordy's sake. The screaming hadn't stopped. She thrashed around the floor, attracting the attention of people in their rooms. Spike and Buffy joined him finally.

"Something's wrong," Angel whispered. "The vision's done. This can't be happening again. Not again. She'll die if we don't stop whatever she's seeing. We have to find Wes. Now."

* * *

Chained, shackled, arms above his head, Wesley wondered yet again what he did to garner such attention from Mark. Here he thought that Buffy was the only one who warranted being chained and tortured. His bloody lip had crusted over, occasionally splitting open again when he moved it wrong. The ribs were still tender, more than tender if his labored breathing was any indication. They'd roughed him up a bit more before chaining him up to the wall. He had protected his ribs as much as he could.

After the bit of roughing him up, they'd left him alone. It left him time to speculate on why he was now the target. His power maybe? If Mark had found a way to harness that energy, he would be invincible. Only Wesley didn't think there was such a way. Vail had been a demon and not of this world. He had suspected for quite some time that Vail had traveled to this dimension and stayed for the fun. Vail's knowledge of traveling between dimensions was noteworthy. How else could he have figured out the things he had: changing people's memories, dying but coming back through a portal again and again. The concept of dying wasn't the same with Vail as it was with humans in this dimension. The fact that the power Vail possessed was potentially lethal to this dimension only further clued Wesley in that Vail could have destroyed them all.

Giles had been quite worried about the power that Vail had given him would take control of Wesley and destroy the world. He was lucky that Isabella had somehow taken the lethal part away. Where had it gone? By taking Vail's power away or only part of it, did she now possess it? Or did it pop out of existence, never to be heard from again? Wesley knew that he still possessed some kind of power. He had just not been willing to try it out. Blowing up half the countryside would have proven its existence in his body and would have killed way too many innocent people.

More than Vail's power being used by someone evil; he was worried about Faith and the others. Both young adults had been taken down, no easy feat when it came to Connor. He did hope that they were just unconscious. Faith though had been injured, by him, only not by him. It was almost like Vail had taken possession of his body again, if just for a split second. By the time he had his wits about him again, he had been taken through the portal, unceremoniously dumped on the ground and kicked in the back by someone with boots.

Concentrating, Wesley attempted to call up the tiniest piece of magicks that he could, if just to run a test of his abilities. He could feel the heavy cloak of some kind of field to dampen magicks. Wishing them away, he concentrated more deeply. The spark was there, hidden deep within his soul. Did it slither like a snake, like it had when Vail had taken him over or could it burn bright and break him out of this prison to save Faith and the others?

"Thank you for finding him, Sybil. I am tired of playing their games. He will do."

Good grief, the man sounded like he was from some B movie being played on a Saturday afternoon.

"You really do get yourself tied up way too much."

Her voice startled him, making him turn awkwardly. Wincing in pain, he struggled to figure out just where she was located until he felt her hot breath against his neck on the other side.

"Lilah, what are you doing here?" he tried to ask in a calm voice.

She snorted in reply. "Watching. Sort of what I do. Until the big boss wants me to take someone out."

Her tone of voice reminded him of one of those Godfather movies Gunn had shown him one afternoon. Sighing, he turned to face her. She wasn't corporeal in the sense that he could touch her, even if he did have use of his arms. Yet there she was, breathing on his neck. That must have broken a rule, somewhere.

"Big boss?" he whispered. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Just messing with you. You really need to stop getting into trouble."

Amazing how in death she could still look so young and fresh. He must look as if a truck had hit him and drove over him for good measure.

"I could use a little help here."

"Huh uh. No can do. Remember? Watching? No touching? Only nudging, possibly giving a few clues along the way? Oh wait, you failed on all counts."

She turned her head sideways. The large scar on her neck was not visible anymore. He guessed the perks of the job let her get rid of it. His regret at putting it there in the first place surfaced if just for a moment.

"I did not ask for the job. Now if you could just help me out of these restraints."

She passed her hand through the chain to make a point.

"Let me point out again. Not solid."

He moved just a bit closer, as much as the chains would allow.

"Then why are you breathing on me?"

Lilah backed away quickly, trying to hide the fact that Wesley knew she was lying. There were ways to become solid in this dimension, if just for a bit of time. Whether she had that ability, he didn't know. She did know how to manipulate something though.

"OK. You're so smart. What then? Escape from here, go save Faith and the others? Figure out what's up with the little red-headed child? Make sure that Cordelia and Fred don't die? Or maybe just you?"

She was telling him everything he needed to know and more. Not only was Faith in danger, both Cordy and Fred were also. The three of them had been together at one point. So maybe someone wanted to make that permanent? Isabella may play a big role in all of this, he thought, whether good or bad.

"Never said I was very smart. Perceptive, maybe? Smart? That's debatable."

Lilah smirked at his comment, and then winked his way. She dove in for a searing kiss, which did prove his point that she could become solid whenever she had wanted. Pulling away, she popped out of existence just as the door to his cell opened. She also left him another present. The cuffs on his wrists were loosened, in the back no less. He could slip his hands free at any time. She had given him at least a fighting chance. He realized that he needed to find out what Mark and Sybil wanted first. Then he'd crush them. The flame he had discovered buried deep now flickered to life.

* * *

Faith paced. She paced again. Connor and Dawn had been checked over by the doctors, declared bruised but fine. She paced again over the linoleum floor of the local hospital, waiting for the two of them to be discharged. It had taken what had seemed like days to get them released. It had only been a little more than twelve hours. Buffy had sent word that they were dealing with issues too; mainly Cordy was losing her battle with the visions way too soon. No word whatsoever on where Wesley might be. No one was working on that.

Her head pounded from all the memories that had washed over her in the last half a day. She still hadn't remembered everything, only the things that seemed important. Her mother, her first watcher, Buffy, betraying Buffy, trying to kill Buffy, trying to kill Angel, trying to kill Wesley. Prison, breaking out of prison, trying to subdue Angelus, fighting the First. Then Wesley again. It was all fuzzy, a blur. Every time she tried to focus in on one piece of information, she'd lose it. Then it would hit her full force, her remembering what it was like to cut Wes deep in so many ways.

She wanted to hit something, make her memory all come back in one piece so she could just get on with it and find Wes. Only she knew that wouldn't work. She'd have to take it piece by piece. It hurt like hell. But it would hurt even more if she didn't find Wes. Wes was her anchor, her reason for continuing to be a slayer, her reason for being. Once she found Wes, freed him, made sure he was OK, she'd declare that they were retiring to some island far away from all the chaos. If only that would happen. Bad followed them. Faith just wished her memory hadn't come back.

* * *

Author note: Sorry for the long overdue chapter not being published. I promise to do better now that summer is here. Please read and enjoy and comment! Thanks for reading.


	10. If I Die Young

Chapter Ten—If I Die Young

Eight months. Eight long months. It might have been worse than solitary, but not by much.

Faith was pissed beyond belief. Her legs itched, a rash around her ankles and calves. Probably from wading through a freaking jungle, she concluded. She'd wade through a freaking jungle and more to get what she wanted. Connor, on the other hand, had been whistling, like they were on a hike for fun. Sure, she'd love her fist to tell him, we're having so much fun my fist connected with your hard-ass head. Having fun now, kid?

His fist came up to stop her in her tracks. He wanted her attention and compliance. When he had first agreed to help her, she had told him that she was the boss and to deal. Anything to do with the tracking though, she handed over control from day one.

Only two hundred, forty some odd days later, and they had not found what they were looking for. So close a few times. Faith stilled her body, attempting to sense if anyone, any human, was near. The jungle's noises invaded her brain, making it all but impossible to tell if their prey was up ahead. Something had peaked Connor's interest. What she wouldn't give for his senses.

Connor pointed to her right, instructing her without words for her to quietly go forward and around their possible prey. He'd go left. As silently as she could, Faith crept through the jungle, hoping that it was Wesley, and not some drug runner or tiger up ahead.

Her senses finally went into overdrive. Whoever was up ahead was definitely human. She caught out of the corner of her eye movement. Luckily it wasn't a fast movement. Crouching down low, she made her way through the brush and probably bugs and small creatures. The sun was fully up now, beaming down here and there through the dense trees. The humidity was almost as bad as the bugs and her rash. Her hair, which she had pulled up and out of the way, dripped with sweat. Not a beauty contest to find Wesley. She just had to bring him back alive.

At least she knew he was alive. Their last encounter had been a surprise. She had discovered that Mark had possibly taken him to a deserted island in the Pacific. They had made it to the island just as a helicopter was lifting off. His eyes glared back at hers from a distance, almost like he was trying to warn her off. Not likely. That was two months ago. Another dead end and now this.

Slow and steady. She had rushed into too many situations and failed miserably. There was too much at stake, too many deaths in the last few years. Failure was not an option. This had to be stopped, right here, right now. Mark had taken this way too far. He had kept her and Connor busy for months, time that they could have spent saving Cordelia and stopping Willow. One was in a coma and the other off her rocker. Wesley needed to come help her fix all this and get them all back in one piece.

Seeing Connor off in the distance, he pointed to what looked to be a primitive campsite. A lone figure sat on a stool, motionless in the midday heat. It had to be him. The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. This was potentially another trap set by Mark and his henchmen. The last two traps had almost stopped them dead in their tracks. A broken arm here, a broken head there, nothing had slowed them yet. This one could be booby trapped with a bomb or worse. They could be sucked into Hell. Or a hell dimension.

Connor called a halt to their progress again. Up ahead, she could hear three voices coming their way. The lone figure flinched a little at the sounds too. He, she could tell it was a he now, raised his head, looking to his left and right.

Oh shit, it was Wes. By the hunched shoulders, the neck, the arms bunched up under the t-shirt, she could finally tell. Why had it taken her so long to figure it out?

Because he was attempting to warn the two off rescuing him, that was why. Shaking his head slowly, he raised his hands slightly, if just to show her that he was tied up. She didn't give a rat's ass if he was hogtied, she wasn't going to give up this time.

His hair was short, really short, neck burned from the intense sun of the day. He had gained weight and muscle from the looks of him. The t-shirt he wore was ripped in places, his bare arms scratched up. Her arms didn't look any better. Hiking in a jungle without a long sleeve shirt on was not a good idea, but it was better than passing out from the heat.

She could see him struggle with something, watch as the muscles in his forearms and neck bunched as if working at something. Probably whatever bound his hands together? He stopped as soon as the voices became clear. Were there three or more?

Faith turned when she heard another voice off in the distance. Were they aware of her and Connor's existence? The voice hummed in her ear again, this time a bit clearer. It kept saying one word over and over again.

"Go."

No, she blasted back in her mind. Wesley's head jerked in her direction, glaring her way. Well hell, he knew they were there and had just told her in no uncertain terms to leave. When had he learned how to communicate like that? There had been a few instances when she thought she heard his voice off in the distance, but she had ignored it, until now.

Fucking no, she directed at him. His chin dropped down toward his chest.

"Traps are set."

Whoa damn. A whole sentence that time. But how would she warn Connor? She didn't have to warn the kid. He knew and had pointed to one of them. Faith looked up and saw the net hanging in the trees. Must be a trigger somewhere. Where there's one trap, there were others.

The three men approached Wes now. One had a nasty looking knife by his side, while the other one had what looked like to be some kind of pistol. By the looks of them, they were henchmen. It's the man in the middle that had made those hairs stand up. She didn't know who he was by sight, but she bet he wasn't a nice guy.

"Hello. I finally get to meet you in person, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce. I trust that we haven't inconvenienced you too much. Now if you just come this way, I can show you what I'd like for you to do."

American by the accent, Faith concluded. Well-dressed, but not overly so. Clean-cut, unlike the two with the weapons. Wesley stood and complied. Why wasn't he fighting this? Hell, he was strong, able, smart, and always ready for a fight. What did they do to him?

Wes shuffled along after the older man. Leg wound, Faith noticed. The dried blood on his upper thigh would explain the limping motion. Had he tried to escape or did his captors just like to torture him for fun? She motioned for Connor to follow the four. Hopefully wherever they were going, there wouldn't be any traps.

In the clearing, there was another burly guy, this one carrying an ax of some sort. Mark was sprawled nearby, bullet between his eyes. Faith certainly wasn't sorry he was dead. Only now there was a new player in town.

"Negotiations break down," Wesley's gravelly voice asked.

"He served his usefulness. The greed was too much in the end. Plus he attempted to kill me. Since I'm already dead, that didn't work, now did it?"

Dammit, Faith thought. Mark was human, alive and evil. This being wasn't alive, so how would they stop him?

"You see, this is something that he should have done months ago. He promised me that he would. He didn't. Let's get on with it, shall we?"

The burly guy raised the ax in his hand. Connor's eyes widened considerably. They'd need a miracle to fight three possibly skilled fighters with weapons and one possibly undead being that might be able to kick their asses with his pinky.

Faith crept closer, hoping to get her opening and crush these guys once and for all.

Connor almost yelled out loud for her to wait, but she saw his gesture to stop just in time. She mouthed "no way" when she saw their new arrival. Damn, can't people stay dead in this world?

"You're done, Holland."

It had been a lifetime ago when she had seen him last. Evil lawyer, hiring her to kill Angel. It didn't work, which pissed lawyer guy off immensely. Faith just thought it was a little funny. He certainly had changed.

Lindsey's hair was long, blowing in the breeze that had developed over the last few, agonizing minutes. When had the guy muscled up? He handled the sword in his hands like he knew what he was doing. Behind him, out of the wind, two women appeared. Faith had no idea who the black-haired chick was, but she certainly knew Anya when she saw her. Only Anya was dead too. So was Lindsey, according to Angel.

Holland glared at the arrivals, motioning the henchmen forward, while he backed closer to Wes.

"Wow, you're really difficult to find Holland. You too, Wes."

Faith swallowed hard, hoping that she was hallucinating the next voice. She'd been there when he died, had searched for his body to give Buffy and Willow closure. There hadn't been much left, since the bomb that had been set had done its job a little too well.

"Yes, of course. You don't seem to understand, Alexander."

Oooh, Xander hated to be called that. She just wanted to see him slap the older guy just once for saying that.

"He must die to restore all that was before."

Anya snorted while the other girl walked a few more steps forward. Damn, her eyes were black. Her chants made Faith's ears finally.

"Back away from Wesley, now," Lindsey commanded Holland to do.

Connor looked at Faith for direction. Hey, they were just the audience at the moment.

Holland wasn't backing away at all. The dagger that he had hidden somewhere glinted in the bright sunlight now that Holland revealed it. No way was some undead son of a bitch taking Wes out with a knife, again.

"He will destroy the world as we know it, joining forces with the witch if you do not let me handle this."

"Afraid he might actually topple the Senior Partners? Angel came so close last time," Lindsey said as he walked forward, sword swinging.

Faith just wished that Wes would knee the guy or something and run. Or stagger. He stood stock still. Something was wrong with him. Faith had been with Wes too many times when whatever evil magicks arose to not know that Wes was working up to a big one. His neck bulged, veins popping out. His arms flexed and moved, breaking the bonds that had held them still.

"Holland thinks that he is saving the world. I think not."

Wes sent his forearm into the closest captor, sending him flying. Whatever signal she and Connor had worked out had flown into the wind. Connor was on the one with the ax faster than she could have gotten there. Now they only needed to take out the guy with the big gun. Must be her cue.

Running at top speed, Faith was able to tackle the guy before he got off more than a few shots, all which went wide except for one. Her arm burned, but she ignored it for her one purpose in life at the moment: saving Wes. This guy was twice her size, but slow and stupid. It didn't take much to knock him senseless.

Holding her injured arm, Faith turned to see Wes's black eyes stare at nothing, all the while staring a large hole into the center of her heart. Only he didn't act all evil, like he had before. All the other dead people stopped in their tracks with the commotion. Holland seemed to have disappeared into the air.

"Someone want to tell me what the fuck is going on? Eight fucking months," Faith yelled at no one and everyone.

"We can't," Anya had started. Faith turned to her, willing her to shut up.

"You can't. You won't. Bastards. There are people dying here, suffering. And all you do is say, 'we can't'. Well, fuck that. I am so sick and tired of all this."

Eight months of bottled up fear and desperation, of wondering if someone else was going to die in this battle. She needed to solve this, get Wes back, cure Willow, get Cordy out of her coma and make sure that Angel didn't kill himself. Right then, Wes was the first and only step that she cared about.

Wes gasped out in pain from his injury, crashing to his good knee. His eyes returned to normal, face twisted in pain. Connor caught him before he could sink any further to the ground. Faith ran to him, cupping his face in her grimy hands.

"Hello, my dear," Wes got out before collapsing in her arms, making her cry out in pain from her own injury.

Looking up, she noticed that the three of them were alone. All the dead had fled, leaving them in a clearing in the jungle with bodies all around them.

"OK, did we just rescue him?" Connor said as he took Wesley's weight from her arms.

* * *

"Working up a good one? What in hell possessed you?"

Lindsey grimaced at the yelling. Sure, he'd been yelled at plenty of times in his life, but never like this. A foot was stomped; bottles went crashing to the floor. When someone like her works up a good mad, then she'd better get it out of her system. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of any sharp objects.

"We saw an opportunity."

"He's gone. We were so close."

Yeah, he guessed that she was right about this one. They all were so close to figuring out what Holland's game plan was. One, they knew he had to kill Wes, Cordy and Fred. Two, they had to be killed in a certain way or else whatever he had planned wouldn't work. Three, everyone else was collateral damage, whether dead or alive.

Holland had accomplished one out of the three at the moment. That one out of three broke his heart every day he looked into her face, but it had happened. Wes had almost been number two. Almost. He was so lucky they had arrived, until he had seen Connor and Faith on the scene.

He and the other three, Xander, Anya and Jenny had tried to protect the other two as much as possible. Since Cordelia wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, she was as safe as she could be. Surrounded by trained slayers day and night in addition to Angel had made her safe. Wes was the wild card. It was almost like he wanted to stay kidnapped.

"He's safe now. Faith and Connor…"

"Have more sense than the four of you do."

Lindsey had never wanted to cause any more pain and sorrow for Fred. She had enough to last a few lifetimes and more. She'd also died a few too many times. Why did she keep ending up here? Hadn't she done her time? Didn't she deserve a rest from all the chaos? Lindsey wondered what she could have done while living that put her here?

"Didn't listen?"

And here he thought he'd get a quiet moment with Fred. Lilah barged in on them, not bothering to knock, as usual.

"No. What else is new?"

"I had it you know."

Yeah, Lilah had it. She was supposed to be protecting Wesley. By the dried blood and torture that Wes seemed to have endured, that was protection? He was alive though, barely. Lindsey had seen that knife Holland was holding. It was the same one that had killed Fred. Their guard had been let down for an instant. Holland was more than a third of the way there, whatever the plan might be. Cordy would be next if she didn't have so many people around her. What were they going to do next?

"Holland stood not two feet from Wes with that damn knife. And you had it?" Lindsey explained to his former partner.

"I knew Wes could stop him."

Fred snorted in return. Lindsey was amazed that Lilah had so much faith in her former lover. He didn't look so good was Lindsey's impression.

"What, with that gunshot wound to his leg. Yeah, he had it," Lindsey told Fred.

"It wasn't Wes I was worried about. It was Cordelia. Someone tried to kill her early this morning. Wes told me…"

"You stay away from him," Fred vehemently challenged Lilah. "You are to protect him. That's all."

"He had information. What, you think they could keep him prisoner? He's been faking for a long, long time. He knows so much that we don't. Just because he looked like he was beat, doesn't mean he wasn't playing them."

The look in his eyes really didn't look like a man who was about to die, Lindsey thought. What in hell was the man planning and why didn't he let them in on it?

"I know exactly what kind of games Wes plays. Remember?" Lilah directed that last comment at Fred.

"Vividly. What did he tell you?"

"That someone trusted was going to kill Cordy. He knew the exact time even. He may have overheard Mark discussing it. I don't know. All I know is that she had to be stopped and quickly."

"She?" Fred finally asked.

"Willow. They were able to subdue her for now."

Fred sighed in frustration. Willow, the witch, wasn't supposed to be the bad guy, only she was, at the moment. Fred wasn't supposed to die, but she did, again. Lilah wasn't supposed to be working for the good guys, but she was, for now. He wasn't supposed to be in charge, but he was, for now. Now if that Irishman, Doyle, would just get back from wherever he was, Lindsey could get back to cracking heads instead of giving orders.

* * *

Frustration. Eight months of frustration and not enough answers. He was sure he was on the verge of figuring out the answers. Only Faith and her merry crew of one had to interfere, along with Lindsey and his dead merry crew. Why hadn't Lilah listened to him?

Apparently she had listened, to a point. Cordy was safe, for now. Willow was in custody, for now. And his line to the answers was dead of a bullet to the head. How Mark had liked to talk about all he knew. Greedy bastard.

Faith had slapped a bandage on his wound and walked away. No glad to see you or how are you doing. It was all business with her. By the look in her eyes though, she was attempting to keep her anger at bay. He knew it would all be directed toward him. He indeed had kept them on the run. It was all necessary. If no one had come to his rescue, or at least attempted to rescue him, then the ruse would have not worked. From the moment that Mark had taken him, he realized that there was more to be gained by staying than leaving. Mark had a big mouth.

The gunshot wound had hurt, but it had missed all the vital arteries. The cuts on his arms would heal quickly. The ones on his back would probably take a bit longer. That knife that Holland had produced though would have ended his life just by entering his skin. It gleamed in his hands as he turned it, him hoping there was some type of inscription. Ceremonial knifes always held some significance.

"Knife?" Connor asked as he crouched down to Wesley.

"Yes. One of significance I believe. I took it from Holland just before he disappeared. I do hope that this is the only one in existence."

Wesley realized that it could be the same knife that had killed Fred. The inscription he knew must be there just became more important than anything at the moment.

Making their way back through the jungle to the road hurt his leg immensely, but they needed to get back to civilization and medical attention. Infection could set in. That might do Holland's work for him. Faith walked ahead of him, Connor behind him, sometimes the latter whistling a tune.

"Dare I ask?" he started with Faith as she trudged through greenery.

"Fred is dead, which I think you know. Cordy isn't doing so hot. Willow is freaking insane. Isabella hasn't spoken a word since you left. Giles has a broken leg, courtesy of Willow. Angel's been sitting by Cordy's bedside for months on end. Spike is in charge."

Wesley knew all but the last statement as fact. "Spike is in charge?"

"Who else is left? Dawn?"

"Hey, watch it," Connor answered in return.

"She's research girl. Not much time to order people around. We, on the other hand, have been tracking you, for months." Faith turned to confront him.

"What the fuck is going on? Why aren't you happy to see us?"

Now that was a loaded question. He was happy to see Faith. Only now their job had gotten more difficult without information.

"Glad to see you? Yes. Happy to see you? Questionable."

If Wesley could take away that look of hurt in Faith's eyes, he would. He had seen that look only a few times, the first time when he had called her a piece of shit. The second time had been when they were attempting to capture Angelus without staking him. Third time's the charm they say.

They made it to the road before nightfall and the vehicle that Faith had rented. Being in a jungle could be potentially dangerous in the nighttime. Wesley didn't have any idea which country they were currently in, much less what the date was. They didn't stop their travels until late in the night. His body shook from exhaustion and little food. Connor grabbed them some snacks from the back of the jeep, but that hadn't been enough. His body craved sleep and food, not in any particular order. And possibly a shower.

The hotel Connor had picked was a bit rundown, but clean and had hot water. Wesley had scrubbed for a good twenty minutes before realizing that Faith would want to get clean also. As he entered the bedroom, she wasn't there. Food was placed on the side table, but no Faith. Wesley finished his meal quickly, hoping that he could speak with Faith finally.

Only he fell asleep before he spoke a word with her. He awoke with a shudder, a nightmare just on the verge of becoming terrifying. The dimly lit room at first was difficult in which to see. Wesley spotted Faith curled up on a chair in the corner of the room. She must be clean, he assessed, because her hair was down, curling in all directions. The wound on her arm was bandaged and had probably begun the healing process. He winced as he moved his leg under the sheets. The only thing he had on were a pair of boxers that Connor had provided.

"I hate you, you know that?" Faith said as she stretched her toned body.

"I don't particularly like myself right now either, Faith. I am sorry."

"Don't say you're sorry," she shot back angrily. "People were dying, hurting."

"I know. I was attempting to stop it."

Faith had gotten up from her uncomfortable perch and walked over to the bed. She stood not two feet from him, so close yet so far.

"By letting Mark do whatever."

"Whatever he did to me, he also talked, a lot. He had a big mouth. I am very close to figuring out what Holland Manners is planning. If I had had just a few more days."

"You'd be dead. That knife. Remember that? Same exact one that killed Fred. Or one that looked exactly like it. Don't you get it? You didn't have to martyr yourself. We could have figured this out together."

And Faith possibly would have died attempting to protect him. Being with Mark had been a type of protection. Mark wanted something, probably money or riches. Holland had promised him something in return. He had never attained that information. Lilah fed the others the information that Wesley had. It had been a good arrangement. Except Mark had gotten greedy about something. His payment perhaps?

"We would have all been dead before now."

Faith took his shoulders in her small but capable hands and shook him.

"No. No way would I have let that happen."

Wes grabbed her hands in his to stop the shaking.

"I missed you."

There, he said it. He had wanted to tell her what he was planning, but she wouldn't have stuck to the plan if she knew he was in danger constantly.

"And I'm sorry. I should have told you."

"No, you shouldn't have done it in the first place. You bastard."

There was no venom behind her statement. The fact that she hadn't moved away from him said it all. Pushing him down on the bed, she climbed on top, meeting him face-to-face.

"I still hate you."

She possibly did hate him. And wanted to kill him. But that's not why she had crawled up his body and ground her hips into his.

"At this moment, I don't particularly like you either," he managed to pant out.

If she didn't remove a few articles of clothing, he might just have to do it for her with dire consequences for the cloth. Almost like she was reading his mind, she threw off the clothes, adding his one item in. It was only when they were both completely naked that she finally kissed him. It was odd that she hadn't done it before now.

"Don't do that again."

Wesley was in no shape to fight with her. Gentle wasn't usually in Faith's vocabulary, in every sense of the word. She lived life fully, whether it was fighting or in bed. Only she was now treating him like he would shatter at any moment. Twisting, he had her over and pushed into her in almost one motion. She gasped in surprise and pleasure, giving up what power she had.

As she arched her back, Faith took him over that edge, making him feel boneless and loved for the first time in a long time.

"I still hate you."

It might take some time for her to come around to him returning to her life.

Author notes: Wow, sorry it took so long to update. It's happening, but at a snail's pace. I hope to get back on that writer train very soon and continue updating. Thanks for the support.


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